There had been a fierce factional debate raging when he came up late to take his unobtrusive place upon the sidewalk, but even before he added his voice to the din those who argued that the old mail-carrier's disappearance could be in no way connected with that of Young Denny Bolton, who had gone the way of all the others of his line, were in a hopeless minority. Their timidest member's announcement stunned them all to silence--left them hushed and speechless--not for an hour or two, but for the days that followed as well. Even the red-headlined account which had come with that morning's batch of news of Young Denny's victory and the fall of Jed The Red, whom they had championed under the Judge's able leadership, failed to stir up any really bitter wrangle. They sat in an apathetic circle, waiting for Old Jerry to come. But no one, not even Morehouse, knew when Old Jerry disappeared that night after Jed Conway had come hurtling from his corner, only to lift and whirl and go crashing back before the impact of The Pilgrim's leaping gloves. At first the plump newspaper man believed that the surging, shouting wave of humanity which had broken comber-like over the ropes to hail a newer favorite had separated the little, bird-faced man from him. Only a recollection of those vice-like fingers clinging to his arm a moment before made that probability seem unbelievable. It was a long time before The Pilgrim's brain had again become clear enough to grasp the meaning of the questions which Morehouse put to him, but Denny did not know even as much as did the round-faced reporter himself. He only recognized the description of the shrill voiced, beady-eyed mail carrier. To Old Jerry belonged the only comprehensive explanation for his sudden withdrawal from the scene, just at that moment when his own share in it might have been not inconsequential. And more than that, his resolution to keep it strictly and privately his own grew firmer and firmer, the more thought he gave to it. In those hours which intervened between the impulse which had resulted in his modest retreat from Morehouse's side, under cover of the crowd's wild demonstration, and the next morning when he boarded the train which was to carry him back to the hills, after a cautious reconnaissance that finally located Denny in the coach ahead of him, he once or twice sought to analyze his actions for an explanation less derogatory to his own self-respect. "They wan't no real sense ner reason in my hangin' around, jest gittin' under foot," he stated thoughtfully. "I done about all I was called on to do, didn't I? Why, I reckon when all's said and done, I jest about won that fight myself! For if I hadn't a-come he wouldn't never a-got that ribbon. And Godfrey, but didn't that wake him!"