A shot! Her heart jumped--her nerves twanged with the shock of it. "That hit something!" The thought was almost simultaneous. The sound was more like an explosion--deadened, muffled somewhat--as of a charge fired into a bale of hay or cotton. For the space of a dozen heartbeats she lay with her mouth open, breathless in the deathly silence of the frozen night. A scream! It must have reached the sky. Piercing, agonized--the agony of a man screaming with his mouth wide open--screaming without restraint, in animal-like unconsciousness of what he was doing. "Jap!" She clutched his arm and shook him. The screams kept coming, blood curdling, as if they would split the throat, tear it, and horrible with suffering. "Jap!" She sat up and shook his shoulder violently. "Wha's the matter?" he asked, sleepily. "Did you hear that shot? Listen!" "Some drunk," he mumbled. "He's hurt, I tell you! Hear him!" "Drug store's open." "Oughtn't you to go to him?" "Lemme be--can't you?" He again breathed heavily. The screams kept coming, but each a little fainter. Either the man was moving on or the pain was lessening. Mrs. Toomey's heart continued to thump as she lay rigid, listening. She wanted to get up and look through the window, but the floor was cold and she could not remember exactly where she had left her slippers. Anyway, somebody else would go to him. It was a relief, though, when he stopped screaming. Others whom the cries of agony awakened applied the same reasoning to the situation, with minor variations. "Tinhorn" in particular was disturbed because of their nearness. He raised his head from under a mound of blankets and frowned into the darkness as he wondered if, as Prouty's newly elected mayor, he would be criticized should he fail to go out and investigate. He was so warm and comfortable! "Guess I'd better get up, Mamma." His wife gripped him as if he was struggling violently, although his Honor was lying motionless as an alligator. "You shan't--you'll get pneumonia and leave me and the children without any insurance! You've no right to take chances. Let somebody else go that hasn't any future." There was that side to it. "Some hobo most like." The future statesman turned over. "Tuck my back in, Mamma." Mr. Sudds was awakened, and his first impulse was to rush to the man's assistance, but he was not sure where to find matches, and it took him such an unconscionable time to dress that by the time he got there-- Scales was restrained by the arms of his fragile wife who threatened hysterics if he left her. Between love and duty Mr. Scales did not hesitate with the thermometer at forty below zero, and the knowledge that loss of sleep unfitted him for business.