Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/98

 names from a paper. Every time he spoke somebody stuck out a tongue, and let him feel a pulse. Zack didn't see any fingers whacked off, but folks looked mighty skittish.

Presently a thin-legged sergeant crossed over to the other side of the deck, and took his station at the head of the steps. He shouted something to his yellow soldiers. They scattered along the lower decks, and began shoving folks toward the stairway. If people didn't get along fast enough the soldiers pushed 'em down to the barge. Then the folks commenced tumbling their beds and bundles on to the barge. Exactly what Guinea Ryan had prophesied.

The sergeant thrashed his own legs with a raw-hide whip. Once in a while he tapped some fellow over the back, to keep him hustling. Some of the steerage passengers came voluntarily; some had to be toted bodily. The sergeant counted every one, and checked them on a paper.

Zack caught a whiff from that bucket which a soldier carried; it smelled like carbolic. "Uh!" he groaned, "I ain't gwine to let 'em squirt none o' dat down my throat." He saw Guinea Ryan cross the lower deck with a bundle, and disappear down the hatchway.

Old Reliable had endured the strain to the last limit of negro nature. Then he stampeded