Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 118: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

588 Some of the most bitter cases of hatred between human beings have been developed by persons, strangers to each other, wi out spoken word or overt act. The very unreasonableness :of the hatred makes it fiercer because no sane argument may be adduced to assuage the feeling. Those human beasts of burden, smooched by smithy smut, tramping to and fro, be- held behind the window of the library a fellow convict who had nothing heavier than a pen or a book in his grip; he scowled at them; they felt that they had better reason to scowl at him, and they did so and were able to put more malignity into their expressions, nature having given them faces especially suited to the purpose. Furthermore, they saw a pretty girl in the company of this dilettante convict every once in a while, and were probably remind- ed more poignantly of their own unattrac- tiveness. One day they placed thumbs to noses in atrocious insult; only Nina’s presence and horrified adjuration to keep away from “the brutes” prevented Douglass from leaping out on the rascals and smashing his fists on those knobby, clipped heads that hid the secret he longed for so avidly. And, after a time, the feeling that he wanted to crack those heads and extract information as he would pick out nut-meats became an obsession. He admitted frankly to himself that “something had got to split ”! One afternoon, he was walking across the yard, carrying an armful of magazines. Over the top of his burden he beheld the two hateful convicts marching along the path toward him; they were lugging their empty stretcher between them. It was not in Douglass’s mind to break prison rules. He stepped to one side. ‘You dough-faced dinger of a pie-eyed dude!” snarled one of the men. “You ain’t in a cosy nest cuddling a dame right now!’ supplemented the other. Then they banged the stretcher against him and knocked him flat and kicked the magazines out of his arms. For one moment Douglass lay on his back trying to control his emotions, striv- THE ARGOSY. ing to fit action to that self-appointed code of ‘‘ The Right.” Then he saw red. He leaped up and ac- cepted their brutal challenge. State prison or no State prison, his battlefield was there! The larger man had possessed himself of the stretcher and was swinging it with plain intent to mash the antagonist. He was easy prey because both of his hands were occupied. Douglass crouched to avoid the stretcher and felled the man with a hook to the jaw. His partner kicked, barking an oath. The young man seized the hurtling foot and tripped the assailant. When. Douglass stepped back both men struggled up and came at him. ‘‘ $-s-s-s—smash him!” When that battle-cry was voiced Ser- geant Douglass felt a queer thrill tingle in him; he had heard that fizzling preface of a word under the Norway. pines in the darkness of the night! Once more he knocked down his first assailant. Then he clutched the smaller convict by the throat with both hands and forced him to his knees. ‘‘ You were there! You know who killed old Tingley! Damn you, tell me!” He kept playing changes on those three sentences. He repeated them over and and over, reversing their order. His fury transfigured him. A guard’s rifle barked alarm from the prison wall. Men were shouting. Douglass’s frenzied words had conquered the two antagonists more effectually than his fists. The man whom the sergeant clutched was limp and white, staring up at the questioner and overwhelmed with panic. The young man dragged him a little way and began to kick brutally’ when he was near enough to reach the other man. “Tell me! I'll have it out.of you!” But both took their punishment in af- frighted silence, not attempting to rise. On the face of things, therefore, when the blustering guards arrived, Douglass was - doing all the fighting, viciously continuing to assault two unresisting men. ‘The warders broke his clutch and over- powered him. im (Cl Q) NOOLK