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.
CHAPTER IV
A COURT OF INQUIRY ORDERED
THERE were two morning newspapers published in the town; or, as some people put it, "one and a quarter."
The Tribune appealed to the more orderly element in the community. In the Tribune was an account of the police version of the night before, to the effect that Bunny Hepburn and a gang had set upon Lieutenants Overton and Terry, of the Regular Army, and that the two young officers had given an excellent account of themselves in the encounter, afterwards declining to prosecute the gangsters.
The Sphere, the other morning sheet, made its appeal to the rougher element of the city. It was through this sheet that Orator Hepburn had been able to acquire much of his local notoriety. Hepburn and Sayles, the latter the proprietor of the Sphere, had been cronies for five years. To Sayles the older Hepburn had gone, taking along with him his "witnesses."
As was to be expected, the Sphere attacked the two young officers, giving wholly the Hepburn version of the affair.
"But this will not be the last of the matter," the Sphere proclaimed dramatically. "There are reliefs to be had from such outrages. Mr. Hepburn has already taken the matter up with a strong hand. Through the night two of our ablest local attorneys toiled at preparing the papers in the case. A formal complaint has been drawn up, backed by the testimony of the witnesses under oath, and all the papers in the case are now on their way to Washington. The residents of this city will soon be in a position to know whether such outrages may be safely committed by officers of our Regular Army, a body of men organized supposedly for the protection of the citizens of the country!"
"Well, wouldn't that blow your hat off?" demanded Lieutenant Noll, as he and his chum went over the account published by the Sphere.
"It's evidently aimed with a view to blowing our heads off," muttered Hal Overton.
"What talented liars there are in this world!" uttered Noll Terry, in high disgust.
"They wouldn't do so much harm, though, if it weren't for the fact that sometimes liars, under oath, manage to get themselves believed," returned Hal.
"Is anybody going to believe this rot?" insisted Noll.
"Some one in the War Department might, not knowing the local reputation of the Hepburns."
"Well, the War Department will know, if it takes any action on these trumped-up, lying charges," declared Lieutenant Noll hotly.
"Of course we won't lie down and tamely submit to such false charges," agreed Lieutenant Overton.
"Going out for a walk this morning?" Noll wanted to know.
"I feel much more inclined to sit here and think this whole thing over," Hal answered, pointing to the lying sheet.
"Hal, if we stay indoors to-day the Sphere will have it to-morrow that we are overwhelmed with shame and fear, and have kept in hiding."
"And, if we go out around the town," laughed Hal, "the Sphere will proclaim to-morrow that we are brazenly showing ourselves and trying to cheek down the charges against us."
"Then we'll take our choice and do as we please," remarked young Terry. "Come along out."
Hal got his hat, and the chums went forth, again in their tennis flannel undress.
The news had not been slow in spreading. They had gone hardly a block when they were stopped by friends, and congratulated on having taught Bunny such an effective lesson.
Others there were, however, who whispered behind the backs of the young officers. Hal and Noll were not slow to catch some of those whispers.
"We're a whole lot more important than we were three years ago," grinned Noll. "Now, at last, we seem to have the town divided into two camps concerning us."
"Three," corrected Hal.
"How do you make that out?"
"One crowd believes the charges against us, and another doesn't. The third crowd isn't sure, or doesn't care."
"One fellow I'm after, anyway," muttered Noll grimly.
"Who's that?"
"Sayles."
"Who's he?"
"Don't you know?"
"I'm afraid I can't recall a party named Sayles," Hal answered thoughtfully.
"Why, he's the pen-hoister who gets out the Sphere!"
"Oh, well, what are you going to do to him, Noll?"
"I'm going to make him prove all he printed in his lying sheet."
"He can – with the aid of the kind of witnesses that he has back of him," Hal reminded his chum.
"Well, we shall have to see if the testimony of such witnesses will 'go' in court," Noll contended grimly.
"Are you going to prosecute the fellow?"
"I'm going to sue Sayles for libel," Noll retorted.
"Is the fellow worth the trouble?" Hal inquired doubtfully.
"No, but our reputations are," rejoined Noll bluntly. "Hal, we are commissioned officers in the United States Army. If that means anything, it means that the United States government certifies us to the world to be gentlemen as well as officers. You know the legal phrase, 'officer and gentleman.' If we lie down tamely, and submit to such libelous attacks as the Sphere made on us this morning, then we do a wrong to the whole body of officers and gentlemen in the Army. The officers of our service have always had to stand a lot of abuse from a certain kind of so-called newspapers. It's time to stop it by hitting any nail that shows its head. We owe it to our brother officers."
"Noll, I'm inclined to think you're right."
"I know I am. Come along, down this street."
"Where now?"
"I'm headed for the office of Lawyer Kimball. He's the best man in town to handle our case."
To