ver the back fences."

"We caught one there, Billy an' me," Bud interpolated.

"So we don't waste any time," Jackson said, addressing himself to Saxon.
"We've done it before, an' we know how to do 'em up brown an' tie 'em
with baby ribbon. So we catch your husband right in the alley."

"I was lookin' for Bud," said Billy. "The boys told me I'd find him
somewhere around the other end of the alley. An' the first thing I know,
Jackson, here, asks me for a match."

"An' right there's where I get in my fine work," resumed the first
teamster.

"What?" asked Saxon.

"That." The man pointed to the wound in Billy's scalp. "I laid 'm out.
He went down like a steer, an' got up on his knees dippy, a-gabblin'
about somebody standin' on their foot. He didn't know where he was at,
you see, clean groggy. An' then we done it."

The man paused, the tale told.

"Broke both his arms with the crowbar," Bud supplemented.

"That's when I come to myself, when the bones broke," Billy
corroborated. "An' there was the two of 'em givin' me the ha-ha.
'That'll last you some time,' Jackson was sayin'. An' Anson says, 'I'd
like to see you drive horses with them arms.' An' then Jackson says,
'let's give 'm something for luck.' An' with that he fetched me a wallop
on the jaw--"

"No," corrected Anson. "That wallop was mine."

"Well, it sent me into dreamland over again," Billy sighed. "An' when
I come to, here was Bud an' Anson an' Jackson dousin' me at a water
trough. An' then we dodged a reporter an' all come home together."

Bud Strothers held up his fist and indicated freshly abraded skin.

"The reporter-guy just insisted on samplin' it," he said. Then, to
Billy: "That's why I cut around Ninth an' caught up with you down on
Sixth."

A few minutes later Doctor Hentley arrived, and drove the men from the
rooms. They waited till he had finished, to assure themselves of Billy's
well being, and then departed. In the kitchen Doctor Hentley washed his
hands and gave Saxon final instructions. As he dried himself he sniffed
the air and looked toward the stove where a pot was simmering.

"Clams," he said. "Where did you buy them?"

"I didn't buy them," replied Saxon. "I dug them myself."

"Not in the marsh?" he asked with quickened interest.

"Yes."

"Throw them away. Throw them out. They're death and corruption.
Typhoid--I've got three cases now, all traced to the clams and the
marsh."

When he had gone, Saxon obeyed. Still another