"Yes; and listen," said the man in front of him so impatiently that it hushed his antagonist's tirade. "I talk to an 'officer' of the National Guard--I who have lost my wife, my children and all in this flood no man has yet described; we who have seen our dead with their bodies mutilated and their fingers cut from their hands by dirty foreigners for a little gold, are not afraid to talk for what is right, even to an officer of the National Guard." While he spoke another great, dark, stout man, who looked as if he had suffered, came up, and upon taking in the situation every vein in his forehead swelled purple with rage. "You dirty cur," he cried to the officer; "you dirty, drunken cur, if it was not for the sake of peace I'd lay you out where you stand." "Come on," yelled the Lieutenant, with an oath. The big man sent out a terrible blow that would have left the Lieutenant senseless had not one of the privates dashed in between, receiving part of it and warding it off. The Lieutenant got out of his military coat. The privates seized the big man and with another correspondent, who ran to the scene, held him back. The Lieutenant put his hand to his pistol pocket, the deputy seized him, and the struggle for the weapon began. For a moment it was fierce and desperate, then another private came to the deputy's assistance. The revolver was wrested from the drunken officer and he himself was pushed back panting to the ground. The deputy seized the military coat he had thrown on the ground, and with it and the weapon started to the regimental headquarters. Then the privates got around him and begged him, one of them with tears in his eyes, not to report their officer, saying that he was a good man when he was sober. He studied a long while, standing in the road, while the officer slunk away over the hill. Then he threw the disgraced uniform to them, and said: "Here, give them to him; and, mind you, if he does not go at once to his quarters, I'll take him there, dead or alive." CHAPTER XXII. While yet the first wild cry of anguish was thrilling among the startled hills of the Conemaugh, the great heart of the nation answered it with a mighty throb of sympathy. On Tuesday afternoon, at Washington, the President called a gathering of eminent citizens to devise measures of relief. The meeting was held in Willard's Hall, on F street, above Fourteenth, and President Harrison made such an eloquent appeal for assistance that nearly $10,000 was raised in the hour and a half that the meeting was in session. As presiding officer the Chief Magistrate sat in a big arm-chair on the stage. On his right were District Commissioner Douglass, Hine and Raymond, and on his left sat Postmaster-General Wanamaker and Private Secretary Halford. In the audience were Secretaries Noble, Proctor and Tracy, Attorney-General Miller, Congressman Randall and Senators and Representatives from all parts of the country.