e east gate.
Just outside the reservation was a resort kept by a jovial compatriot of
Hogan's,--assuming that an Irishman is always an Irishman whether born
on the sod or in the States,--and there Ray felt pretty sure of finding
his servant and sending him home to mount guard. And there, sure enough,
he learned that Hogan had been up to within five minutes, and had left
saying he must go to help the lieutenant. He was perfectly sober, said
the publican, and it was more than half a mile back to quarters. Ray
would be late for dinner as it was, the car was coming, and so, though
dissatisfied and ill at ease, he jumped aboard, hurried to the
Occidental, and within three hours was stunned and almost crushed by the
tidings that the house had been entered and robbed, probably within an
hour after he left it.

And now Saturday morning, while the guns of Alcatraz were booming in
salute across the bay and all the garrison was out along the shore or on
the seaward heights, waving farewell to the Vinton flotilla, and his
mother and Maidie had gone out with the department commander to bid them
god-speed, poor Sandy sat wretchedly in his quarters.

Hogan, overwhelmed by the magnitude of his master's misfortune, and
realizing that it was due in no small degree to his own neglect, was now
self-exiled from the lieutenant's roof, and seeking such consolation as
he could find at the Harp of Erin outside the walls, a miserable and
contrite man,--contrite, that is to say, as manifested in the manner of
his country, for Hogan was pottle deep in his distress.

Although vouched for as perfectly sober from the Hibernian point of
view, he well knew that he had taken so much that fatal Thursday evening
as to be fearful of meeting his master, and so had kept out of the way
until full time for him to be gone to dinner. Then, working his way
homeward in the darkness of the night, he had marvelled much at finding
the back door open, rejoiced at sight of the demijohn and disorder in
the little dining-room, arguing therefrom that the lieutenant had had
some jovial callers and therefore hadn't missed him.

Hogan drank, in his master's priceless old Blue Grass Bourbon, to the
health of the party, and then, stumbling into the bedroom and lighting
the lamp, came upon a sight that filled him with dismay--the beautiful
desk burst open, drawers and letters and papers scattered about in utter
confusion,--and in his excitement and terror he had gone on the