As he spoke two men dashed out of a building near by, and fired at the group beyond. The others turned and made a rush. The two newcomers cut across the street, thus for a moment diverting the line of fire which had been perilously close to where the two boys were standing. "This is too hot for me," said the reporter, "we'd better get out of here as fast as we know how. We'll go to the end of this street and turn to the right. Are you ready? Come along." Out from the doorway like a couple of frightened hares the two lads bolted, pursued by a few shots which, they flew so far over their heads, Hamilton surmised were intended as a warning to keep out of the way rather than as attempts to shoot them. In the few seconds that had elapsed it seemed that the streets had become full of running policemen, and Hamilton looked back. As he did so, he saw one of the men in the nearest group stagger sideways and stand for an instant alone in the center of the street. There was the sharp bark of a sawed-off revolver, and the wounded man just reached the shelter of a doorway as the bullet sang over the spot on which he had stood a second before. The sight unnerved Hamilton. He clutched the reporter's arm. "Chinese, Camorrists, sweatshop workers, and negroes!" he cried, a hysterical note in his voice. "Are there no Americans in an American city?" The reporter grasped his shoulder and pointed to where, a block or two away, the towering framework of a Titanic building pierced the sunlit air, far above the sordid savagery of the human rat-holes near by. Guiding monster beams into place, sure-set upon the frailest foothold, forms of men, made tiny by the distance, were silhouetted against the sky. "The post of honor is the post of danger," he said; "it is in work like that, where skill is linked to daring, where brain is joined to nerve, that the Yankee stands. If you want to see the American in America, don't look down, look up!" [Illustration: WORK FOR AMERICANS. Where skill and nerve and endurance are required is where the true American is found. (_Copyright by Brown Bros._)] THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy With the U.S. Census by Francis Rolt-Wheeler