“You don’t go a step until we go together,—no, by the beard of the prophet! I’ve a fight on here and I’m going to win if I die in the struggle, and you’ve got to stay with me to the end.” “But under the will you dare not take a boarder.” “Of course I dare! That will’s as though it had never been as far as I’m concerned. My grandfather never expected me to sit here alone and be murdered. John Marshall Glenarm wasn’t a fool exactly!” “No, but a trifle queer, I should say. I don’t have to tell you, old man, that this situation appeals to me. It’s my kind of a job. If it weren’t that the hounds are at my heels I’d like to stay with you, but you have enough trouble on hands without opening the house to an attack by my enemies.” “Stop talking about it. I don’t propose to be deserted by the only friend I have in the world when I’m up to my eyes in trouble. Let’s go down and get some coffee.” We found Bates trying to remove the evidences of the night’s struggle. He had fastened a cold pack about his head and limped slightly; otherwise he was the same— silent and inexplicable. Daylight had not improved the appearance of the room. Several hundred books lay scattered over the floor, and the shelves which had held them were hacked and broken. “Bates, if you can give us some coffee—? Let the room go for the present.” ‘‘Yes, sir.” “And Bates—” He paused and Larry’s keen eyes were bent sharply upon him. “Mr. Donovan is a friend who will be with me for some time. We’ll fix up his room later in the day” He limped out, Larry’s eyes following him. “What do you think of that fellow?” I asked. Larry’s face wore a puzzled look. “What do you call him,—Bates? He’s a plucky fellow.” Larry picked up from the hearth the big candelabrum with which Bates had defended himself. It was badly bent and twisted, and Larry grinned. “The fellow who went out through the front door probably isn’t feeling very well to-day. Your man was swinging this thing like a windmill.” “I can’t understand it,” I muttered. “I can’t, for the life of me, see why he should have given battle to the enemy. They all belong to Pickering, and Bates is the biggest rascal of the bunch.” “Humph! we’ll consider that later. And would you mind telling me what kind of a tallow foundry this is? I never saw so many candlesticks in my life. I seem to taste tallow. I had no letters from you, and I supposed you were loafing quietly in a grim farm-house, dying of ennui, and here you are in an establishment that ought to be the imperial residence of an Eskimo chief. Possibly you have crude petroleum for soup and whipped salad-oil for dessert. I declare, a man living here ought to attain a high candle-power of luminosity. It’s perfectly immense.” He stared and laughed. “And hidden treasure, and night attacks, and young virgins in the middle distance,—yes, I’d really like to stay a while.”