Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants: or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers

"You don't sneak out of it that easy!" jeered Bunny.

"Behave yourself, and let me by," requested Hal Overton sternly.

He tried to push the noisy fellow out of his path. Bunny, with the strength of the gang behind him, swung a hard blow at the Army boy's face.

In self-defense Hal Overton was obliged to fend off the blow. But Bunny came back at him again.

"Sail into the soldier-loafers!" called Bunny.

Wolf-like, the gang attacked in a pack, and on all sides at once. It didn't take Noll Terry an instant to see that this was serious business. Without a word Noll sprang back to back with Hal, and thus they met the onslaught.

In the crowd there were some hard-hitters, and the odds were tremendous.

On the other hand, Hal and Noll were no mean boxers. They had gained their skill with their fists in many a brisk garrison bout with the gloves. Moreover, both Army boys possessed the advantage of soldierly courage and discipline.

So, for a few moments, though they took some blows, yet they managed to keep off the wolf-pack fairly well.

Hal Overton's blood was up now, and he was dangerous. Watching his chance he let fly a blow that caught Bunny forcefully on the nose.

"Wow-ow-ow! O-o-oh!" wailed Bunny, trying to find shelter behind one of his companions. "The soldier-loafer is trying to kill me. Wade into him, fellers! Get him down and – "

At that moment Hal, with Noll at his back, worked through the line and caught Bunny over his left eye with a force that sent the noisy one down to the sidewalk.

"Get up, you cur!" ordered Hal.

For a moment the members of the gang on Overton's side of the fight seemed paralyzed.

Gripping Bunny Hepburn by the collar, Hal dragged the fellow to his feet and instantly planted a blow that closed the other eye.

"Now, you'll stay put," panted Hal breathlessly. "Come on, the rest of you hyenas, and we'll walk through the whole crowd of you!"

With a yell of defiance the gang closed in. While the mix-up was at its hottest, a low, trilling whistle sounded from Skinny Carroll's lips. Only two of the gang heard it in the excitement; that pair took to their heels at once.

Down the street came a pair of flying feet.

"Cop! cop!" yelled Skinny Carroll. "Duck and run!"

Three more of the gang heard and took to their heels at once. One of the fugitives ran squarely into the policeman's arms. The blue-coat stopped another by drawing his revolver and commanding a halt. When the policeman came along with his two prisoners Noll had a third to add to the collection. Hal had Bunny and another of the late fighting crew.

"What's this trouble about?" demanded the policeman gruffly.

"It's an outrage, and high time you got here," wailed Bunny. "Officer, just look at me!"

"You seem to look just right to me," grinned the policeman.

"Officer, I demand that you arrest these two fellows!" insisted Bunny, in a shaking voice. "They'd have killed me if you hadn't got here just when you did."

"Hold your tongue," commanded the policeman. Then, turning to Hal, he asked:

"What's the rights of this affair?"

"Don't you listen to what they say!" screamed Bunny. "They'll lie like a house afire. I was going along, minding my own business, when this pair jumped on me. You see what they did to me."

"Officer, what's the meaning of this?" demanded a man who had just come on the scene. It was Bunny's father, the agitator and anarchistic lecturer.

"If you'll keep quiet long enough I'll soon find out," retorted the policeman.

"Officer," demanded the elder Hepburn, "do you know who I am?"

"Yes; that's why I want you to keep quiet," retorted the policeman, with no great show of awe or respect.

"But – "

"Get back and keep quiet until I've had time to look into this thing!" blazed the policeman ominously.

"Minion of the hireling law," began the elder Hepburn, running his fingers through his hair and striking an attitude.

"Hepburn, in the name of the Commonwealth, I demand your assistance in taking care of the prisoners," retorted the policeman grimly. "Disobey at your peril. Here, take charge of this prisoner," indicating Bunny. "If you let him escape you'll go to jail for it!"

Thus summoned in the name of the Commonwealth the elder Hepburn, though he loathed his task, had to play the part of a police officer or take the consequences. Hepburn, like his son, was noisy but not brave; he had no desire to serve his state in jail, so he served it on the street.

However, the arresting party and prisoners had gone only as far as the next corner when they encountered Chief of Police Blake, an official who was not afraid of any one or anything.

"What's this?" asked the chief.

Hal and Noll were asked to explain the affair, while the two Hepburns and Bunny's companions were forced, much against their will, to keep still.

"We don't care about pressing any charge, chief," Hal added. "This crowd got punished enough as it was."

"One of them certainly did," grinned Chief Blake, taking in the extent of damage done to Bunny's countenance.

"Chief, I insist that you arrest these two soldier-loafers!" cried Bunny hoarsely.

"And I back up that demand!" added the elder Hepburn, with what he considered impressive dignity.

"Bosh!" retorted Chief Blake. "I'd take the word of these two Army officers against a whole slumful of rowdies like these young fellows. And so would any judge in his right mind. I refuse to arrest either of these young Army officers, for I'm convinced that they acted only in their own defense."

"Officer," broke in the elder Hepburn dramatically, "you have no right to take the word of hireling soldiers against honest young working – "

"Go on! Chase yourselves! A quick vanish or a long night behind the hard iron bars!" cried Chief Blake, dropping into the language that Bunny and his companions could best understand. "Another piece of jaw, and to the green-lighted doorway you all go!"

Then, nodding to Hal and Noll to stroll along with him, Chief Blake left the discomfited trouble-makers.

"Another proof that the law exists only for the benefit of the favored few!" hissed Bunny's father. "But this latest outrage shall not go unnoticed. There are ways of getting justice, even under such a miserable government as ours, and we shall have recourse to those ways. Come with me, gentlemen, and I shall show you what can be done!"

There are always ways of making trouble when one is bound to do it. Moreover, Mr. Hepburn was an expert at trouble-making, and on this night he worked overtime.

There was trouble ahead, as the two Army boys discovered on awakening in the morning.