Once inside, Spirlaw rounded on the boy again, and he stopped only when he was out of breath. “Didn’t Carleton tell you to stay where you was?” he finished bitterly. “Oh yes,” said Keating, “that’s about the first thing he _did_ say after he had read your letter, when I gave it to him yesterday. Then I tumbled to why you had sent me out of camp. You’re about as square as they make them, Spirlaw. You needn’t blame Carle-ton, _he_ had about all he could do without paying any attention to me or any one else. Had any wires or news in here?” Spirlaw shook his head. “No; but I knew something was up, because Number Eleven is the first train in or out to-day. The express messenger just said they’d cut loose in Big Cloud and wrecked about everything in sight, but I guess he was puttin’ it on a bit.” “He didn’t put on anything,” said Keating slowly. “My God, Spirlaw, it was an awful night! The freight-house and the shops and the roundhouse, what’s left of them, are ashes. They cut all the wires and then they cut loose themselves--the Polacks and that crowd, you know. Yes, they wrecked everything in sight, and there’s a dozen lives gone to pay for it.” Keating stopped suddenly, and again began to cough. Spirlaw looked at the boy uneasily, and mechanically fumbled with the cords of the package he had laid upon the table. By the time he had removed the wrappers and disclosed two ugly, businesslike looking.45s and a half-dozen boxes of cartridges, Keating’s paroxysm had passed. “I guess it was exciting enough for _me_, anyhow”--Keating tried hard to make his laugh ring true. “I’m a little weak from it yet.” “If you weren’t sick,” Spirlaw burst out, “I’d make you sick for comin’ back here. You know well enough we’ll get it next--you knew so well you came back to help----” “I told Carleton he ought to send some help down here,” Keating interrupted hastily; “and he just looked at me like a crazy man--he was half mad anyhow with the ruin of things. ‘Help!’ he flung out at me. ‘Where’s it coming from? Let Spirlaw yank up his stakes and pull out if things get looking bad!’” “Pull out!” shouted Spirlaw, in a sudden roar. “Pull out! _Me!_ Not for all the cross-eyed, hamstrung Polacks on the system!”