Halliday turned and smiled. "Jim Haggard, why should you shove me and then lie about it? can't you pick a fight for the truth?" "Don't speak to me, you white nigger! Are you armed?" "Yes!" "Then, Launcelot Halliday," yelled the editor, backing out upon the sidewalk and drawing his repeater, "I denounce you as a traitor, a poltroon, and a coward!" Men darted away, dodged, peeped, and cried-- "Look out! Don't shoot!" But John ran forward to the rescue. "Put that thing up!" he called to the editor, in boyish treble. "Put it up!" "Jim Haggard, hold on!" cried Halliday, following down and out with his weapon pointed earthward. "Let me speak, you drunken fool! Get that boy----" "Bang!" went the editor's pistol before he had half lifted it. "Bang!" replied Halliday's. The editor's weapon dropped. He threw both hands against his breast, looked to heaven, wheeled half round, and fell upon his face as dead as a stone. Halliday leaped into the saddle, answered one shot that came from the crowd, and clattered away on the turnpike. John was standing with arms held out. He turned blindly to find the doorway of the stairs and cried, "Father! father!" "Son!" He started for the sound, groped against the wall, sank to his knees, and fell backward. "Room, here, room!" "Give him air!" "By George, sir, he rushed right in bare-handed between 'em, orderin' Haggard"--"Stand back, you-all, and make way for Judge March!" "Oh, son, son!" The father knelt, caught the limp hands and gazed with streaming eyes. "Oh, son, my son! air you gone fum me, son? Air you gone? Air you gone?" A kind doctor took the passive wrist. "No, Judge, he's not gone yet." Ravenel and the physician assumed control. "Just consider him in my care, doctor, will you? Shall we take him to the hotel?" Garnet supported Judge March's steps. "Cast your burden on the Lord, Brother March. Bear up--for Sister March's sake, as she would for yours!" Near the top stairs of the Ladies' Entrance Ravenel met Fannie. "I saw it all, Mr. Ravenel; he saved my father's life. I must have the care of him. You can get it arranged so, Mr. Ravenel. You can even manage his mother." "I will," he said, with a light smile. Election-day passed like a Sabbath. General Halliday returned, voted, and stayed undisturbed. His opponent, not Garnet this time, was overwhelmingly elected. On the following day Haggard was buried "with great eclat," as his newspaper described it. Concerning John, the doctor said: "Judge March, your wife should go back home. There's no danger, and a sick-room to a person of her----" "Ecstastic spirit--" said the Judge. "Exactly--would be only----" "Yes," said the Judge, and Mrs. March went. To Fannie the doctor said, "If he were a man I would have no hope, but a boy hangs to life like a cat, and I think he'll get well, entirely well. Move him home? Oh, not for a month!"