em occupied for a time, offering too
good a chance to be lost, and for the timely arrival of Nelson, neither
of us had ever seen the light again.

We found Craig sound asleep upon his couch. His consternation on waking
to see us torn, bruised, and bloody was laughable; but he hastened to
find us warm water and bandages, and we soon felt comfortable.

Baptiste was radiant with pride and light over the fight, and hovered
about Graeme and me giving vent to his feelings in admiring French and
English expletives. But Abe was disgusted because of the failure at
Slavin's; for when Nelson looked in, he saw Slavin's French-Canadian
wife in charge, with her baby on her lap, and he came back to Shaw and
said, 'Come away, we can't touch this'; and Shaw, after looking in,
agreed that nothing could be done. A baby held the fort.

As Craig listened to the account of the fight, he tried hard not to
approve, but he could not keep the gleam out of his eyes; and as I
pictured Graeme dashing back the crowd thronging the barricade till he
was brought down by the chair, Craig laughed gently, and put his hand
on Graeme's knee. And as I went on to describe my agony while Idaho's
fingers were gradually nearing the knife, his face grew pale and his
eyes grew wide with horror.

'Baptiste here did the business,' I said, and the little Frenchman
nodded complacently and said--

'Dat's me for sure.'

'By the way, how is your foot?' asked Graeme.

'He's fuss-rate. Dat's what you call--one bite of--of--dat leel bees,
he's dere, you put your finger dere, he's not dere!--what you call him?'

'Flea!' I suggested.

'Oui!' cried Baptiste. 'Dat's one bite of flea.'

'I was thankful I was under the barrels,' I replied, smiling.

'Oui! Dat's mak' me ver mad. I jump an' swear mos' awful bad. Dat's
pardon me, M'sieu Craig, heh?'

But Craig only smiled at him rather sadly. 'It was awfully risky,' he
said to Graeme, 'and it was hardly worth it. They'll get more whisky,
and anyway the League is gone.'

'Well,' said Graeme with a sigh of satisfaction, 'it is not quite such a
one-sided affair as it was.'

And we could say nothing in reply, for we could hear Nixon snoring in
the next room, and no one had heard of Billy, and there were others of
the League that we knew were even now down at Slavin's. It was thought
best that all should remain in Mr. Craig's shack, not knowing what might
happen; and so we lay where we could and we needed none to sing us