"Crazy? Not a bit of it," protested Clark warmly. "The Committee of Safety won’t have any leaders or any guns left by to-morrow. Coleman, and Mayor Bryant, and General McComb, and every man of the Committee of Twenty-Four will be under lock and key before morning if something isn’t done about it. They all go home to sleep, and there isn’t a man of ’em that’s thought of having a guard about his house. They’ll all be taken like rats in a trap. Then where’s the Committee of Safety and the militia? They’ll be without leaders and without guns, and what’ll they do? They’ll scatter like sheep. The whole scheme has been worked out like the plans for a building, and if the Council isn’t stopped before twelve you’ll wake up to-morrow morning under a new government." "Nonsense!" I said. "They can’t do that." "All right," said Clark, with a hurt and offended look, "they can’t, then. But it was my duty, sir, to warn you, and I’ve done it, so I’ll be going." "I beg your pardon, Clark," I said hastily. "I didn’t mean to doubt your word or hurt your feelings. You’ve done quite right in coming here, and it’s my business to see that they don’t carry out their crazy schemes. Wait a minute, and I’ll walk along down with you." I had a hurried word with Laura Kendrick, and explained to her the importance of the information Clark had brought, and the necessity of laying it promptly before the Committee of Safety. She looked up at me with some apprehension in her eyes. "Well, if you must, you must," she said. "But don’t you get into any mobs or into any fighting. Just remember that it’s the man who orders somebody else to do his fighting that gets the glory out of it. If there’s any trouble, see that you’re one of the orderers instead of one of the ordered." I laughed at her anxious counsel, and promising to use all the caution with which nature had endowed me, I joined Clark and left the house. Directing Clark to attend the sand-lot meeting and to get word to Andrews at once if the mob should head for the Kendrick house, I caught a car and rode to the headquarters of the Committee of Safety. Horticultural Hall resembled a beehive on swarming day. Wealth and poverty were represented side by side. Merchants, workmen, lawyers, doctors, laborers rubbed elbows, and their stern and serious faces testified to the depth of feeling that had brought them out to the defense of the city. It was an outburst of the same spirit that had given birth to the nation, and had again called forth vast armies to preserve it when its existence was threatened by civil war. At the end of the hall a number of desks had been arranged where enrolment was still in progress. Behind the desks was a platform, and as I approached it I saw William T. Coleman walk briskly to the speaker’s stand. "Three cheers for Coleman!" came the cry from a strong-lunged Vigilante, and three cheers were given with a will. The president of the Committee raised his hand to command silence.