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S'pose me and the Kid lure him to some lonely spot some good yellin'-place and set upon him with a coupla pick-handles. We'll make him confess or we'll maim and meller him till he backs out through his bootlegs. What d'you say?" Pierce shook his head. "Something must be done, but I doubt if that's it. It's tough to be disgraced, to have a thing like this hanging over you.
The Chinese used their shovels and sticks and stones, and what other weapons presented themselves, in defence of their property, and for about five minutes the hand-to-hand conflict raged with a rattle of pick-handles, a thud, thud, thud of busy clubs, oaths in good round English, and a squeaking and yelling in shrill Chinese, and then the Chows, overborne by numbers, backed, broke, and fled, and the hunt was continued.
The boss packer had equipped his command with pick-handles and now set a brilliant example in the use of this, his favorite weapon. For once the apathetic Slater was fully roused; he was tremendous, irresistible. In his capable grasp the oaken cudgel became both armor and flail; in defense it was as active as a fencing-master's foil, in offense as deadly as the kick of a mule.
It is perfectly true that in their rage of grief and disappointment men were willing to march out with pick-handles to rescue him, if there were not rifles enough to arm them. While the excitement lasted this was the mood, and the Reform Committee were the scapegoats. The attitude of the crowd was due to ignorance of the circumstances and natural emotion which could not be otherwise vented.
Underneath this sketch are a number of unpainted buggy and carriage wheels; next, a pile of pick-handles; not far off, a little mound of grindstones; after the grindstones, a platoon of clothes-wringers; next, a solitary iron wheel-barrow communing with a patent fire-extinguisher; following these a crowd of green iron pumps, with sewing-machines in full force.
But no, I shall not tell you. Let it suffice to know that these beaten, feverish men lay seven hours without water. At nine the guards arrived. There were not many of them. There was no need for many, because they unlocked only one dungeon at a time. They were equipped with pick-handles a handy tool for the "disciplining" of a helpless man.
And there they remained, year after year, in the corner of the aisle, till they were removed and placed under the gallery stairs, and thence ultimately to the belfry, where they grew black, rusty, and worm-eaten, and were gradually stolen and carried off by sextons, parish clerks, whitewashers, window-menders, and other church servants for use at home as rake-stems, benefit-club staves, and pick-handles, in which degraded situations they may still occasionally be found.
He had been through a mutiny, where, in the prison yard, with gatling guns trained upon them, three hundred convicts had been disciplined with pick-handles wielded by brawny guards. He had known every infamy of human cruelty, and through it all he had never been broken. He had resented and fought to the last, until, embittered and bestial, the day came when he was discharged.
There in the darkness the men were forced to run stumbling over the uneven ground down a gauntlet that ended only with the cruel sharp blades of a cattle guard, while on their unprotected heads and shoulders the drunken outlaws rained blow after blow with gun-butts, black-jacks, loaded saps and pick-handles.
Clubs and pick-handles were swinging, revolvers were exploding, and cobblestones were flung with crushing effect at arm's distance. Saxon saw young Frank Davis, a friend of Bert's and a father of several months' standing, press the muzzle of his revolver against a scab's stomach and fire. There were curses and snarls of rage, wild cries of terror and pain. Mercedes was right.
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