CHAPTER I_Shorty McCabe

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[Illustration: She was a dream, all right.]

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SHORTY McCABE

Sewell Ford

Illustrated by

Francis Vaux Wilson

New York

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers

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SHORTY McCABE

CHAPTER I

Excuse me, mister man, but ain't you--Hello, yourself! Blamed if I

didn't think there was somethin' kind of natural about the looks, as you

come pikin' by. How're they runnin', eh?

Well say, I ain't seen you since we used to hit up the grammar school

together. You've seen me, eh? Oh, sure! I'd forgot. That was when you

showed up at the old Athletic club the night I got the belt away from

the Kid. Doin' sportin' news then, wa'n't you? Chucked all that now, I

s'pose?

Oh, I've kept track of _you_, all right. Every time I sees one of your

pieces in the magazines I reads it. And say, some of 'em's kind of punk.

But then, you've got to sling out somethin' or other, I expect, or get

off the job. Where do you dig up all of them yarns, anyway? That's what

always sticks me. You must knock around a whole bunch, and have lots

happen to you. Me? Ah, nothin' ever happens to me. Course, I'm generally

on the move, but it's just along the grub track, and that ain't

excitin'.

Yes, it's been a couple of years since I quit the ring. Why? Say, don't

ever put that up to a has-been. It's almost as bad as compoundin' a

felony. I could give you a whole raft of reasons that would sound well,

but there's only one that covers the case. There's a knockout comin' to

the best of 'em, if they hang to the game long enough. Some ain't

satisfied, even after two or three. I was. I got mine, clean and square,

and I ain't ashamed of it. I didn't raise any holler about a chance

shot, and I didn't go exhibitin' myself on the stage. I slid into a

quiet corner for a month or so, and then I dropped into the only thing I

knew how to do, trainin' comers to go against the champs. It ain't like

pullin' down your sixty per cent of the gate receipts, but there's worse

payin' jobs.

Course, there's times when I finds myself up against it. It was durin'

one of them squeezes, not so long ago, that I gets mixed up with

Leonidas Dodge, and all that foolishness. Ah, it wa'n't anything worth

wastin' breath over. You would? Honest? Well, it won't take long, I

guess.

You see, just as my wad looks like it had shrunk so that it would rattle

around in a napkin ring, someone passes me the word that Butterfly was

down to win the third race, at 15 to 1. Now as a general thing I don't

monkey with the ponies, but when I figured up what a few saw-bucks

would do for me at those odds, I makes for the track and takes the high

dive. After it was all over and I was comin' back in the train, with

only a ticket where my roll had been, me feelin' about as gay as a Zulu

on a cake of ice, along comes this Mr. Dodge, that I didn't know from

next Tuesday week.

"Is it as bad as that?" says he, sizin' up the woe on my face. "Because

if it is they ought to give you a pension. What was the horse?"

"Butterfly," says I. "Now laugh!"

"I've got a right to," says he. "I had the same dope."

Well, you see, that made us almost second cousins by marriage and we

started to get acquainted. I looked him over careful but I couldn't

place him within a mile. He had points enough, too. The silk hat was a

veteran, the Prince Albert dated back about four seasons, but the gray

gaiters were down to the minute. Being an easy talker, he might have

been a book agent or a green goods distributor. But somehow his eyes

didn't seem shifty enough for a crook, and no con. man would have lasted

long wearing the kind of hair that he did. It was a sort of lemon

yellow, and he had a lip decoration about two shades lighter, taggin'

him as plain as an "inspected" label on a tin trunk.

"I'm a mitt juggler," says I, "and they call me Shorty McCabe. What's

your line?"

"I've heard of you," he says. "Permit me," and he hands out a pasteboard

that read:

LEONIDAS MACKLIN DODGE

Commissioner-at-Large

"For what?" says I.

"It all depends," says Mr. Dodge. "Sometimes I call it a brass polisher,

then again it's a tooth-paste. It works well either way. Also it cleans

silver, removes grease spots, and can be used for a shaving soap. It is

a product of my own lab'ratory, none genuine without the signature."

"How does it go as a substitute for beef and?" says I.

"I've never quite come to that," says he, "but I'm as close now as it's

comfortable to be. My gold reserve counts up about a dollar

thirty-nine."

"You've got me beat by a whole dollar," says I.

"Then," says he, "you'd better let me underwrite your next issue."

"There's a friend of mine up to Forty-second Street that ought to be

good for fifty," says I.

"I've had lots of friendships, off and on," says he, "but never one that

I could cash in at a pinch. I'll stay by until you try your touch."

Well, the Forty-second Street man had been gone a month. There was

others I might have tried, but I didn't like to risk gettin' my fingers

frost-bitten. So I hooks up with Leonidas and we goes out with a grip

full of Electro-Polisho, hittin' the places where they had nickel-plated

signs and brass hand rails. And say! I could starve to death doing that.

Give me a week and two pairs of shoes and I might sell a box or so; but

Dodge, he takes an hour to work his side of the block and shakes out a

fist full of quarters.

"It's an art," says he, "which one must be born to. After this you carry

the grip."

That's the part I was playin' when we strikes the Tuscarora. Sounds like

a parlor car, don't it? But it was just one of those swell bachelor

joints--fourteen stories, electric elevators, suites of two and three

rooms, for gents only. Course, we hadn't no more call to go there than

to the Stock Exchange, but Leonidas Macklin, he's one of the kind that

don't wait for cards. Seein' the front door open and a crowd of men in

the hall, he blazes right in, silk hat on the back of his head, hands in

his pockets, and me close behind with the bag.

"What's up; auction, row or accident?" says he to one of the mob.

Now if it had been me that butted in like that I'd had a row on my

hands in about two minutes, but in less time than that Leonidas knows

the whole story and is right to home. Taking me behind a hand-made palm,

he puts me next. Seems that some one had advertised in a mornin' paper

for a refined, high-browed person to help one of the same kind kill time

at a big salary.

"And look what he gets," says Leonidas, wavin' his hand at the push.

"There's more'n a hundred of 'em, and not more'n a dozen that you

couldn't trace back to a Mills hotel. They've been jawing away for an

hour, trying to settle who gets the cinch. The chap who did the

advertising is inside there, in the middle of that bunch, and I reckon

he wishes he hadn't. As an act of charity, Shorty, I'm going to

straighten things out for him. Come on."

"Better call up the reserves," says I.

But that wa'n't Mr. Dodge's style. Side-steppin' around to the off edge

of the crowd, just as if he'd come down from the elevator, he calls out

good and loud: "Now then, gentlemen; one side, please, one side! Ah,

thank you! In a moment, now, gentlemen, we'll get down to business."

And say, they opened up for us like it was pay day and he had the cash

box. We brought up before the saddest-lookin' cuss I ever saw out of

bed. I couldn't make out whether he was sick, or scared, or both. He

had flopped in a big leather chair and was tryin' to wave 'em away with

both hands, while about two dozen, lookin' like ex-bath rubbers or men

nurses, were telling him how good they were and shovin' references at

him. The rest of the gang was trying to push in for their whack. It was

a bad mess, but Leonidas wasn't feazed a bit.

"Attention, gentlemen!" says he. "If you will all retire to the room on

the left we will get to work. The room on the left, gentlemen, on the

left!"

He had a good voice, Leonidas did, one of the kind that could go against

a merry-go-round or a German band. The crowd stopped pushin' to listen,

then some one made a break for the next room, and in less than a minute

they were all in there, with the door shut between. Mr. Dodge tips me

the wink and sails over to the specimen in the chair.

"You're Mr. Homer Fales, I take it," says he.

"I am," says the pale one, breathing hard, "and who--who the devil are

you?"

"That's neither here nor there," says Leonidas. "Just now I'm a

life-boat. Do you want to hire any of those fellows? If so--"

"No, no, no!" says Homer, shakin' as if he had a chill. "Send them all

away, will you? They have nearly killed me."

"Away they go," says Leonidas. "Watch me do it."

First he has me go in with his hat and collect their cards. Then I calls

'em out, one by one, while he stands by to give each one the long-lost

brother grip, and whisper in his ear, as confidential as if he was

telling him how he'd won the piano at a church raffle: "Don't say a

word; to-morrow at ten." They all got the same, even to the Hickey-boy

shoulder pat as he passed 'em out, and every last one of 'em faded away

trying to keep from lookin' tickled to death. It took twenty minutes by

the watch.

"Now, Mr. Fales," says Leonidas, comin' to a parade rest in front of the

chair, "next time you want to play Santa Claus to the unemployed I'd

advise you to hire Madison Square Garden to receive in."

That seemed to put a little life into Homer. He hitched himself up off'n

the middle of his backbone, pulled in a yard or two of long legs and

pried his eyes open. You couldn't call him handsome and prove it. He had

one of those long, two-by-four faces, with more nose than chin, and a

pair of inset eyes that seemed built to look for grief. The corners of

his mouth were sagged, and his complexion made you think of cheese pie.

But he was still alive.

"You've overlooked one," says he, and points my way. "He wouldn't do at

all. Send him off, too."

"That's where you're wrong, Mr. Fales," says Leonidas. "This gentleman

is a wholly disinterested party, and he's a particular friend of mine.

Professor McCabe, let me introduce Mr. Homer Fales."

So I came to the front and gave Homer's flipper a little squeeze that

must have done him as much good as an electric treatment, by the way he

squirmed.

"If you ever feel ambitious for a little six-ounce glove exercise," says

I, "just let me know."

"Thanks," says he, "thanks very much. But I'm an invalid, you see. In

fact, I'm a very sick man."

"About three rounds a day would put you on your feet," says I. "There's

nothing like it."

He kind of shuddered and turned to Leonidas. "You are certain that those

men will not return, are you?" says he.

"Not before to-morrow at ten. You can be out then, you know," says Mr.

Dodge.

"To-morrow at ten!" says Homer, and slumps again, all in a heap. "Oh,

this is awful!" he groans. "I couldn't survive another!"

It was the worst case of funk I ever saw. We put in an hour trying to

brace him up, but not until we'd promised to stay by over night could

we get him to breathe deep. Then he was as grateful as if we'd pulled

him out of the river. We half lugs him over to the elevator and takes

him up to his quarters. It wasn't any cheap hang-out, either--nothing

but silk rugs on the floor and parlor furniture all over the shop. We

had dinner served up there, and it was a feed to dream about--oysters,

ruddy duck, filly of beef with mushrooms, and all the frills--while

Homer worries along on a few toasted crackers and a cup of weak tea.

As Leonidas and me does the anti-famine act Homer unloads his hard-luck

wheeze. He was the best example of an all-round invalid I ever stacked

up against. He didn't go in for no half-way business; it was neck or

nothing with him. He wasn't on the hospital list one day and bumping the

bumps the next. He was what you might call a consistent sufferer.

"It's my heart mostly," says he. "I think there's a leak in one of the

valves. The doctors lay it to nerves, some of them, but I'm certain

about the leak."

"Why not call in a plumber?" says I.

But you couldn't chirk him up that way. He'd believed in that leaky

heart of his for years. It was his stock in trade. As near as I could

make out he'd began being an invalid about the time he should have been

hunting a job, and he'd always had some one to back him up in it until

about two months before we met him. First it was his mother, and when

she gave out his old maid sister took her turn. Her name was Joyphena.

He told us all about her; how she used to fan him when he was hot, wrap

him up when he was cold, and read to him when she couldn't think of

anything else to do. But one day Joyphena was thoughtless enough to go

off somewhere and quit living. You could see that Homer wouldn't ever

quite forgive her for that.

It was when Homer tried to find a substitute for Joyphena that his

troubles began. He'd had all kinds of nurses, but the good ones wouldn't

stay and the bad ones he'd fired. He'd tried valets, too, but none of

'em seemed to suit. Then he got desperate and wrote out that ad. that

brought the mob down on him.

He gave us a diagram of exactly the kind of man he wanted, and from his

plans and specifications we figured out that what Homer was looking for

was a cross between a galley slave and a he-angel, some one who would

know just what he wanted before he did, and be ready to hand it out

whenever called for. And he was game to pay the price, whatever it might

be.

"You see," says Homer, "whenever I make the least exertion, or undergo

the slightest excitement, it aggravates the leak."

I'd seen lots who ducked all kinds of exertion, but mighty few with so

slick an excuse. It would have done me good to have said so, but

Leonidas didn't look at it in that way. He was a sympathizer from

headquarters; seemed to like nothin' better'n to hear Homer tell how bad

off he was.

"What you need, Fales," says Leonidas, "is the country, the calm,

peaceful country. I know a nice, quiet little place, about a hundred

miles from here, that would just suit you, and if you say the word I'll

ship you off down there early to-morrow morning. I'll give you a letter

to an old lady who'll take care of you better than four trained nurses.

She has brought half a dozen children through all kinds of sickness,

from measles to broken necks, and she's never quite so contented as when

she's trotting around waiting on somebody. I stopped there once when I

was a little hoarse from a cold, and before she'd let me go to bed she

made me drink a bowl of ginger tea, soak my feet in hot mustard water,

and bind a salt pork poultice around my neck. If you'd just go down

there you'd both be happy. What do you say?"

Homer was doubtful. He'd never lived much in the country and was afraid

it wouldn't agree with his leak. But early in the morning he was up

wantin' to know more about it. He'd begun to think of that mob of snap

hunters that was booked to show up again at ten o'clock, and it made him

nervous. Before breakfast was over he was willing to go almost anywhere,

only he was dead set that me and Leonidas should trail along, too. So

there we were, with Homer on our hands.

Well, we packed a trunk for him, called a cab, and got him loaded on a

parlor car. About every so often he'd clap his hands to his side and

groan: "Oh, my heart! My poor heart!" It was as touchin' as the

heroine's speeches to the top gallery. On the way down Leonidas gave us

a bird's-eye view of the kind of Jim Crow settlement we were heading

for. It was one of those places where they date things back to the time

when Lem Saunders fell down cellar with a lamp and set the house afire.

The town looked it. There was an aggregation of three men, two boys and

a yellow dog in sight on Main Street when we landed. We'd wired ahead,

so the old lady was ready for us. Leonidas called her "Mother" Bickell.

She was short, about as thick through as a sugar barrel, and wore two

kinds of hair, the front frizzes bein' a lovely chestnut. But she was a

nice-spoken old girl, and when she found out that we'd brought along a

genuine invalid with a leak in his blood pump, she almost fell on our

necks. In about two shakes she'd hustled Homer into a rocking-chair,

wedged him in place with pillows, wrapped a blanket around his feet, and

shoved him up to a table where there was a hungry man's layout of clam

fritters, canned corn, boiled potatoes and hot mince pie.

There wasn't any use for Homer to register a kick on the bill-of-fare.

She was too busy tellin' him how much good the things would do him, and

how he must eat a lot or she'd feel bad, to listen to any remarks of his

about toasted crackers. For supper there was fried fish, apple sauce and

hot biscuit, and Homer had to take his share. He was glad to go to bed

early. She didn't object to that.

Mother Bickell's house was right in the middle of the town, with a

grocery store on one side and the postoffice on the other. Homer had a

big front room with three windows on Main Street. There was a strip of

plank sidewalk in front of the house, so that you didn't miss any

footfalls. Mother Bickell could tell who was goin' by without lookin'.

Leonidas and me put in the evening hearin' her tell about some of the

things that had happened to her oldest boy. He'd had a whirl out of

most everything but an earthquake. After that we had an account of how

she'd buried her two husbands. About ten o'clock we started for bed,

droppin' in to take a look at Homer. He was sittin' up, wide awake and

lookin' worried.

"How many people are there in this town?" says he.

"About a thousand," says Leonidas. "Why?"

"Then they have all marched past my windows twice," says Homer.

"Shouldn't wonder," says Leonidas. "They've just been to the postoffice

and back again. They do that four times a day. But you mustn't mind.

Just you thank your stars you're down here where it's nice and quiet.

Now I'd go to sleep if I was you."

Homer said he would. I was ready to tear off a few yards of repose

myself, but somehow I couldn't connect. It was quiet, all right--in

spots. Fact is, it was so blamed quiet that you could hear every rooster

that crowed within half a mile. If a man on the other side of town shut

a window you knew all about it.

I was gettin' there though, and was almost up to the droppin'-off place,

when some folks in a back room on the next street begins to indulge in a

family argument. I didn't pay much notice to the preamble, but as they

warmed up to it I couldn't help from gettin' the drift. It was all

about the time of year that a feller by the name of Hen Dorsett had been

run over by the cars up to Jersey City.

"I say it was just before Thanksgivin'," pipes up the old lady. "I know,

'cause I was into the butcher's askin' what turkeys would be likely to

fetch, when Doc Brewswater drops in and says: 'Mornin', Eph. Heard about

Hen Dorsett?' And then he told about him fallin' under the cars. So it

_must_ have been just afore Thanksgivin'."

"Thanksgivin' your grandmother!" growls the old man. "It was in March,

along the second week, I should say, because the day I heard of it was

just after school election. March of '83, that's when it was."

"Eighty-three!" squeals the old lady. "Are you losin' your mind

altogether? It was '85, the year Jimmy cut his hand so bad at the

sawmill."

"Jimmy wasn't workin' at the mill that year," raps back the old man. "He

was tongin' oysters that fall, 'cause he didn't hear a word about Hen

until the next Friday night, when I told him myself. Hen was killed on a

Monday."

"It was on a Saturday or I'm a lunatic," snaps the old lady.

Well, they kept on pilin' up evidence, each one makin' the other out to

be a fool, or a liar, or both, until the old man says: "See here,

Maria, I'm goin' up the street and ask Ase Horner when it was that Hen

Dorsett was killed. Ase knows, for he was the one Mrs. Dorsett got to go

up after Hen."

"Yes, and he'll tell you it was just before Thanksgivin' of '85, so

what's the use?" says the old lady.

"We'll see what he says," growls the old man, and I heard him strike a

light and get into his shoes.

"Who're you bettin' on?" says Leonidas.

"Gee!" says I. "Are you awake, too? I thought you was asleep an hour

ago."

"I was," says he, "but when this Hen Dorsett debate breaks loose I came

back to earth. I'll gamble that the old woman's right."

"The old man's mighty positive," says I. "Wonder how long it'll be

before we get the returns?"

"Perhaps half an hour," says Leonidas. "He'll have to thrash it all out

with Ase before he starts back. We might as well sit up and wait. Anyway

I want to see which gets the best of it."

"Let's have a smoke, then," says I.

"Why not go along with the old man?" says Leonidas. "If he finds he's

wrong he may come back and lie about it."

Well, it _was_ a fool thing to do, when you think about it, but somehow

Leonidas had a way of lookin' at things that was different from other

folks. He didn't know any more about that there Hen Dorsett than I did,

but he seemed just as keen as if it was all in the family. We had

hustled our clothes on and was sneakin' down the front stairs as easy as

we could when we hears from Homer.

"I heard you dressing," says he, "so I got up, too. I haven't been

asleep yet."

"Then come along with us," says Leonidas. "It'll do you good. We're only

going up the street to find out when it was that the cars struck Hen

Dorsett."

Homer didn't savvy, but he didn't care. Mainly he wanted comp'ny. He

whispered to us to go easy, suspectin' that if we woke up Mother Bickell

she'd want to feed him some more clam fritters. By the time we'd

unlocked the front door though, she was after us, but all she wanted was

to make Homer wrap a shawl around his head to keep out the night air.

"And don't you dare take it off until you get back," says she. Homer was

glad to get away so easy and said he wouldn't. But he was a sight,

lookin' like a Turk with a sore throat.

The old man had routed Ase Horner out by the time we got there, and

they was havin' it hot and heavy. Ase said it wasn't either November nor

March when he went up after Hen Dorsett, but the middle of October. He

knew because he'd just begun shingling his kitchen and the line storm

came along before he got it finished. More'n that, it was in '84, for

that was the year he ran for sheriff.

"See here, gentlemen," says Leonidas, "isn't it possible to find some

official record of this sad tragedy? You'll excuse us, being strangers,

for takin' a hand, but there don't seem to be much show of our getting

any sleep until this thing is settled. Besides, I'd like to know myself.

Now let's go to the records."

"I'm ready," says Ase. "If this thick-headed old idiot here don't think

I can remember back a few years, why, I'm willing to stay up all night

to show him. Let's go to the County Clerk's and make him open up."

So we started, all five of us, just as the town clock struck twelve. We

hadn't gone more'n a block, though, before we met a whiskered old relic

stumpin' along with a stick in his hand. He was the police force, it

seems. Course, _he_ wanted to know what was up, and when he found out he

was ready to make affidavit that Hen had been killed some time in August

of '81.

"Wa'n't I one of the pall bearers?" says he. "And hadn't I just drawn my

back pension and paid off the mortgage on my place, eh? No use routin'

out the Clerk to ask such a fool question; and anyways, he ain't to

home, come to think of it."

"If you'll permit me to suggest," says Leonidas, "there ought to be all

the evidence needed right in the cemetery."

"Of course there is!" says Ase Horner. "Why didn't we think of that

first off? I'll get a lantern and we'll go up and read the date on the

headstun."

There was six of us lined up for the cemetery, the three natives jawin'

away as to who was right and who wasn't. Every little ways some one

would hear the racket, throw up a window, and chip in. Most of 'em asked

us to wait until they could dress and join the procession. Before we'd

gone half a mile it looked like a torchlight parade. The bigger the

crowd got, the faster the recruits fell in. Folks didn't stop to ask any

questions. They just jumped into their clothes, grabbed lanterns and

piked after us. There was men and women and children, not to mention a

good many dogs. Every one was jabberin' away, some askin' what it was

all about and the rest tryin' to explain. There must have been a good

many wild guesses, for I heard one old feller in the rear rank

squallin' out: "Remember, neighbors, nothin' rash, now; nothin' rash!"

I couldn't figure out just what they meant by that at the time; but

then, the whole business didn't seem any too sensible, so I didn't

bother. On the way up I'd sort of fell in with the constable. He

couldn't get any one else to listen to him, and as he had a lot of

unused conversation on hand I let him spiel it off at me. Leonidas and

Homer were ahead with Ase Homer and the old duffer that started the row,

and the debate was still goin' on.

When we got to the cemetery Homer dropped out and leaned up against the

gate, sayin' he'd wait there for us. We piled after Ase, who'd made a

dash to get to the headstone first.

"It's right over in this section," says he, wavin' his lantern, "and I

want all of you to come and see that I know what I'm talking about when

I give out dates. I want to show you, by ginger, that I've got a mem'ry

that's better'n any diary ever wrote. Here we are now! Here's the grave

and--well, durn my eyes! Blessed if there's any sign of a headstun

here!"

And there wa'n't, either.

"By jinks!" says the old constable, slappin' his leg. "That's one on me,

boys. Why, Lizzie Dorsett told me only last week that her mother had

the stun took up and sent away to have the name of her second husband

cut on't. Only last week she told me, and here I'd clean forgot it."

"You're an old billy goat!" says Ase Horner.

"There, there!" says Leonidas, soothing him down. "We've all enjoyed the

walk, anyway, and maybe----" But just then he hears something that makes

him prick up his ears. "What's the row back there at the gate?" he asks.

Then, turnin' to me, he says: "Shorty, where's Homer?"

"Down there," says I.

"Then come along on the jump," says he. "If there's any trouble lying

around loose he'll get into it."

Down by the gate we could see lanterns by the dozen and we could hear

all sorts of yells and excitement, so we makes our move on the double.

Just as we fetched the gate some one hollers:

"There he goes! Lynch the villain!"

We sees a couple of long legs strike out, and gets a glimpse of a head

wrapped up in a shawl. It was Homer, all right, and he had the gang

after him. He took a four-foot fence at a hurdle and was streakin' off

through a plowed field into the dark.

"Hi, Fales!" sings out Leonidas. "Come back here, you chump!"

But Homer kept right on. Maybe he didn't hear, and perhaps he was too

scared to stop if he did. All we could do was to get into the

free-for-all with the others.

"What did he do?" yells Leonidas at a sandy-whiskered man who carried a

clothes-line and was shoutin', "Lynch him! Lynch him!" between jumps.

"Do!" says the man. "Ain't you heard? Why, he choked Mother Bickell to

death and robbed her of seventeen dollars. He's wearin' her shawl now."

As near as we could make out, the thing happened like this: When the

tail enders came rushin' up with all kinds of wild yarns about robbers

and such, they catches sight of Homer, leanin' up in the shadow of the

gate. Some one holds a lantern up to his face and an old woman spots the

shawl.

"It's Mother Bickell's," says she. "Where did he get it?"

That was enough. They went for Homer like he'd set fire to a synagogue.

Homer tried to tell 'em who he was, and about his heart, but he talked

too slow, or his voice wa'n't strong enough; and when they began to plan

on yankin' him up then and there, without printin' his picture in the

paper, or a trial, he heaves up a yell and lights out for the

boarding-house.

Ten hours before I wouldn't have matched Homer against a one-legged man,

but the way he was gettin' over the ground then was worth the price of

admission. I have done a little track work myself, and Leonidas didn't

show up for any glue-foot, but Homer would have made the tape ahead of

us for any distance under two miles. He'd cleared the crowd and was back

into the road again, travelin' wide and free, with the shawl streamin'

out behind and the nearest avenger two blocks behind us, when out jumps

a Johnny-on-the-spot citizen and gives him the low tackle. He was a

pussy, bald-headed little duffer, this citizen chap, and not bein' used

to blockin' runs he goes down underneath. Before they could untangle we

comes up, snakes Homer off the top of the heap, and skiddoos for all we

had left in us.

By the time that crowd of jay-hawkers comes boomin' down to Mother

Bickell's to view the remains we had the old girl up and settin' at the

front window with a light behind her. They asked each other a lot of

foolish questions and then concluded to go home.

While things was quietin' down we were making a grand rush to get Homer

into bed before he passed in altogether. Neither Leonidas nor me looked

for him to last more'n an hour or two after that stunt, and we were

thinkin' of taking him back in a box. But after he got his breath he

didn't say much except that he was plumb tired. We were still wonderin'

whether to send for a doctor or the coroner, when he rolls over with his

face to the wall and goes to sleep as comfortable as a kitten in a

basket.

It was in the middle of the forenoon before any of us shows up for

breakfast. We'd inspected Homer once, about eight o'clock, and found him

still sawin' wood, so we didn't try to get him up. But just as I was

openin' my second egg down he comes, walkin' a little stiff, but

otherwise as good as ever, if not better.

"How far was it that I ran last night, Mr. Dodge?" says he.

"About a mile and a half," says Leonidas, stating it generous. "And it

was as good amateur sprinting as I ever saw."

Homer cracked the first smile I'd seen him tackle and pulled up to the

table.

"I'm beginning to think," says he, "that there can't be much of a leak

in my heart, after all. When we get back to town to-night, Mr. McCabe,

we'll have another talk about those boxing lessons. Eggs? Yes, thank

you, Mrs. Bickell; about four, soft. And by the way, Dodge, what _was_

the date on that gravestone, anyway?"