“It ought to make me mad to be run off of Beaver. But I couldn't take any interest. May I see Rosanne?” “Go right up-stairs. Cecilia took her up to put her to bed. The walls and floors are thick here or she would have heard your voice.” “Poor little Rosanne! It's been a hard day for her.” The young Mormon paused before ascending. “Ludlow, as soon as you can give me a few things to make the women comfortable for the run to Green Bay, I'll take them and put out.” “Tell Cecilia to come down. She'll know what they need.” Until Cecilia came down and hugged Elizabeth silently but most tenderly the lighthouse-keeper stood with his feet and gaze planted on a braided rug, not knowing what to say. He then shifted his feet and remarked: “It's a fine night for a sail, Elizabeth. I think we're going to have fair weather.” “I think we are,” she answered. Hurried preparations were made for the voyage. Elizabeth helped Cecilia gather food and clothes and two Mackinac blankets from the stores of a young couple not rich but open-handed. The lighthouse-keeper trimmed the lantern to hang at the mast-head. He was about to call the two up-stairs when the crunching of many feet on gravel was heard around his tower and a torch was thrust at one of the windows. At the same instant he put Elizabeth and Cecilia in the stairway and let James Baker, bounding down three steps at once, into the room. Each man took a gun, Ludlow blowing out the candle as he reached for his weapons. “Now you stand back out of sight and let me talk to them,” he said to the young Mormon, as an explosive clamor began. “They'll kill you, and they daren't touch me. Even if they had anything against me, the drunkest of them know better than to shoot down a government officer. I'm going to open this window.” A rabble of dusky shapes headed by a torch-bearer who had doubtless lighted his fat-stick at the burning temple, pressed forward to force a way through the window. “Get off of the flower-bed,” said Ludlow, dropping the muzzle of his gun on the sill. “You're tramping down my wife's flowers.” “It's your nosegays of Mormons we're after having, Ludlow. We seen them shlipping in here!” “It's shame to you, Ludlow, and your own dacent wife that hard to come at, by raison of King Strang!” “Augh! thim bloomers!—they do be makin' me sthummick sick!” “What hurts you worst,” said Ludlow, “is the price you had to pay the Mormons for fish barrels.” The mob groaned and hooted. “Wull ye give us oat the divil forninst there, or wull ye take a broadside through the windy?” “I haven't any devil in the house.” “It's Jim Baker, be the powers. He wor seen, and his women.” “Jim Baker is here. But he's leaving the island at once with the women.” “He'll not lave it alive.” “You, Pat Corrigan,” said Ludlow, pointing his finger at the torch-bearer, “do you remember the morning you and your mate rowed in to the lighthouse half-frozen and starved and I fed and warmed you?” “Do I moind it? I do!”