Then the captain’s baseball bat landed on the top of Mustard’s head and Mustard sank to the floor unconscious. Kerlerac walked over with the intention of pounding the negro’s head to a jelly, but just then—— From a little house in the yard by the side of the residence, there sounded the thrilling scream of Miss Virginia Gaitskill. The woman he loved! A moment later she began to shriek, and in her tones were all the concentrated essence of agonized terror! Miss Virginia, in her effort to escape from the flying bullets, had run out of the house through the kitchen. As she rushed out of the door into the yard, the light from the door shone full into the eyes of a six-foot alligator. He opened his mouth wide at her approach, and when she screamed, he snapped his jaws like a bear-trap! The shrieking girl fled for refuge to the storehouse. Alas! A stream of sweetness from a barrel of ribbon-cane sirup had been running from the spigot for two days and one night. Over the floor of that storehouse was a pool of molasses one inch deep. Virginia stepped into that mess and both her dainty slippers stuck! She screamed. She tried to retreat and stepped out of both her slippers, and her feet stood ankle-deep in the molasses. Then came a series of shrieks which were the essence of agonized terror! Captain Kerley Kerlerac, leaving Mustard unconscious upon the floor, ran to the rescue of the beauty in distress. Plunging out of the kitchen door, he leaped over something which looked like an old mud-caked log, and which snapped at him viciously as he passed. Failing to get a bite of the captain’s leg, the alligator walked around to the front of the house. Kerlerac hurled himself through the door of the storehouse like a catapult. Alas for the hero! Both feet landed in the molasses, both feet slipped from under him, he fell flat on his back, rolled over and over in the sweetness, and stopped his progress only when both feet struck against the empty barrel from which all that saccharine had dripped! He sprang up, threw his sweet arms around the woman he loved, drew her close to his sirupy form, laid his bleeding cheek against her amber hair, and carried her forth to safety! In the meantime, Skeeter Butts was lying in the reception room under a leather couch, grasping the green-plush box in his nervous hand. He had started up-stairs to restore it to its rightful owner, just as Org and Little Bit, thinking they were poisoned, had run down the hallway above in their flight to the dining-room. Skeeter had turned his body to retreat, had lost his balance, and had fallen down the steps, taking refuge under the leather couch, where he was happy to remain during the subsequent scenes of that memorable night. When the screams of Miss Virginia Gaitskill attracted all the guests to the rear of the house, Skeeter crawled from under the couch, crawled across the reception room, slipped out of the front door and began to crawl toward the gate.