Criminals -- Fiction; Social problems -- Fiction; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918 -- Fiction
"You damn bitch!" he said. "I’ll show you!"
"That’s right, Danner," said the Kid. "You’ve got some one your size
now! Soak her again."
Danner whirled, his anger loose now, and struck the Kid savagely in the
face. The line thrilled through its entire length; wild, vague hopes of
freedom suddenly blazed within the breasts of these men, and they tugged
at the chains that bound them. Utter, watching from the door, ran down
the walk, and Danner drew his revolver.
"Get into that wagon!" he shouted, and then he hurled after them another
mouthful of the oaths he always had ready. The little sensation ended,
the hope fell dead, and the prisoners moved doggedly on. In a second
the Kid had recovered himself, and then, speaking thickly, for the blood
in his mouth, he said in a low voice:
"Danner, you coward, I’ll serve you out for that, if I get the chair for
it!"
It was all still there in the gloom and the misty rain, save for the
shuffle of the feet, the occasional click of a handcuff chain, and
presently the sobbing of the Polish woman rising from the wet ground.
Danner hustled his line along, and a moment later they were clambering
up the steps of the patrol wagon.
"Well, for God’s sake!" exclaimed the driver, "I thought you’d never get
here! Did you want to keep these horses standing out all night in the
wet?"
The men took their seats inside, those at the far end having to hold
their hands across the wagon because they were chained together, and the
wagon jolted and lurched as the driver started his team and went bowling
away for the station. The Pole was weeping.
"The poor devil!" said the pickpocket. "That’s a pretty little broad he
has. Can’t you fellows do something for him? Give him a
cigarette--or--a chew--or--something." Their resources of comfort were
so few that the Kid could think of nothing more likely.
Just behind the patrol wagon came a handsome brougham, whose progress
for an instant through the street which saw so few equipages of its rank
had been stayed by the patrol wagon, moving heavily about before it
started. The occupants of the brougham had seen the line come out of
the jail, had seen it halt, had seen Danner fling the Polish woman aside
and strike the pickpocket in the face; they had seen the men hustled
into the patrol wagon, and now, as it followed after, Elizabeth Ward
heard a voice call impudently:
"All aboard for the stir!"
IX
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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