floor. A shower of blows fell on him; the woman beat him with her
pudgy fists; Mr. Ottinger was kicking at him; Jake was weeping, and
endeavoring to get room in which to swing his club.

Gordon had one foot on the floor.

"Give me a chance at him," Jake implored; "give me a chance. God, if I had
a knife."

If they took away the chair, Gordon knew, he was lost. He clung to it;
pressed his breast against it; crept upward by means of it, slowly,
slowly, through a storm of battering hands. It seemed to him that, in
rising, he was shouldering aside the entire weight, the forces, of a
universe, bent on his destruction, and against which he was determined to
prevail. It was as though his will, the vitality which animated him, which
was his soul, stood aside from his beaten and suffering body, and, with a
cold, a cruel, detachment, commanded it upright.

The woman's bulk got in Jake's way, and he struck her across the eyes with
the back of his hand, consigning her to eternal hell. Mr. Ottinger,
confused by the irregularity of the turmoil, worked inefficiently,
swinging at random his hard fists, kicking impartially.

Gordon now had both feet upon the floor; he straightened up. For a breath
the three stood motionless, livid; and in that instant his hand fell upon
the door knob, he staggered back into the hall, carrying with him a vision
of his brocaded tie lying upon the floor.

XII

He stumbled hastily down the stairway, and found the narrow porch, the
serene, enveloping night; down the street lamps made blots of brightness,
but, beyond, the obscurity was profound, unbroken. Wave after wave of
nausea swept over him, he clung to a porch support with cold sweat
starting through the blood that smeared his countenance, stiffened in his
shirt, that was warm upon his side. The sound of footfalls, sharp,
repressed voices from above, stirred him into a fresh realization of his
precarious position. The gamblers would follow him, rob him with impunity
in the shadows of Sprucesap's lawless street, drag him behind the angle of
a building, where Jake would have ample scope for the swinging of his
leathered lead....

He lurched down to the street, and silently merged into the awaiting
night.

At dawn he appeared from a thicket, a mile beyond Sprucesap on the road to
Greenstream, and negotiated successfully a ride on a load of fragrant
upland hay to a point within a few miles of his destination. His coat,
soiled and torn, wa