The first gray of the morning was lightening the eastern sky as I disbanded my company. I had landed my captive in the City Prison, stubbornly uncommunicative, and jauntily confident that he was to be protected from harm. And when at last I had made my report at the Vigilante headquarters, I was driven to Wharton Kendrick’s home, consumed with anxiety lest some of the wandering bands of rioters, or another gang of bravoes sent by the highbinders, had been inspired to attack it. Peter Bolton had succeeded in one of his schemes of vengeance, and I trembled lest in the wreck of his conspiracy against the peace of the city he had struck another blow at the person of his enemy. As we turned the corner into Van Ness Avenue my mind was relieved of one anxiety. The Kendrick house still stood untouched by fire, and the gray dawn showed no sign of further attack. Andrews received me with composure. "Oh, yes," he replied to my eager questions, "there was some of them hoodlums come along here--gangs of ten or twenty at a time--and they yelled a good deal. But when we showed our teeth they went by on the other side. There was some shooting a block or two away, but they didn’t even throw a rock around here." At this soothing report I flung myself down in the men’s quarters for a hurried sleep, dog-tired, but gratified to feel a reviving spring of courage. It seemed but a moment later that I saw Laura Kendrick threatened by the largest dragon I have ever met--in Dreamland or out. The uncanny monster had the face of Peter Bolton, marvelously magnified to fit a hundred-foot body, and he opened his mouth in sardonic laughter as he moved forward to crush the slight figure that stood in his path. At this sight I was oppressed by a modest but terrified conviction that I would cut but a poor figure in a contest with a dragon. But spurred by fear for the life of the most important girl in the world I ran forward shouting out such threats as I could summon, in the hope of communicating some of my own terrors to the monster, when on a sudden his boiler blew up, and he was scattered into nothingness. The shock of the explosion waked me, and I started up to find Andrews at my side. "I didn’t mean to knock the chair over, sir," he said apologetically, "but you told me to call you at seven. And Miss Kendrick says you are to go upstairs to breakfast, as soon as you’re ready." I collected my faculties sufficiently to make myself presentable, and was received at the door by Laura herself. "I’m afraid," she said, as she ushered me into the breakfast-room, "that it doesn’t agree with you to stay up all night. I don’t believe you’ve had a wink of sleep, but I’ve made some coffee that’s warranted to bring you wide awake before you can shut your eyes." "If that’s the way I look, my personal appearance is a libel on a peaceful citizen. I have slept for close on three hours, and have dreamed of acres of fires, and enough fighting to fill a book."