Marks, the proprietor of the hotel, was able to breathe more freely when the Dougherty crowd vacated the premises. McKenna earned many plaudits from Dougherty’s friends for the skill he had exhibited in amateur surgery, but Dougherty himself said that he had cut him more and deeper than necessary, and he would never forgive him for it. Unreasonable as this certainly was, his followers earnestly endeavored to convince the drunken fellow of his error, but the liquor in him had turned his brain, and it is presumable that he might have sought to punish the detective, who had assisted to preserve his worthless life, had not others prevailed upon him to defer it until the morrow, and finally succeeded in coaxing and dragging him off to another tavern. In a short time he was as drunk as ever. Some of the Dougherty crowd said if they ever wanted a doctor they “would send for that fellow just from the Rocky Mountains.” As much to get out of the way of the intoxicated men as from any other reason, McKenna, the hour still being early, left the bar-room and hunted up Pat Nolan, to whom he bore a letter from Dormer, finding the man soberly at his home. Nolan read the epistle and said he was happy to meet any friend of Dormer, but was sorry to say that work, for the present at least, was simply out of the question. They had some quiet games at cards, and passed a couple of hours pleasantly, when the detective bade all good-night, and, at about eleven o’clock, went back to the Columbia House. Before midnight, leaving the place well filled on the ground floor, he retired to his bed—but not to sleep, as fate or circumstance ordained. Too much noise rang upon his drowsy ear to make slumber possible. He had been between the sheets, tossing uneasily from side to side and enjoying such brief intervals of repose as he could catch betwixt waves of uproar and riot rising from the depths beneath him, during a couple of hours, perhaps, when there was a resounding rattle at his chamber door. Without moving, he asked, in no pleasant tone: “Who the divil’s there?” The answer was not particularly reassuring: “We want to get in!” said somebody in a thick, gruff voice. McKenna quickly appreciated the fact that Dougherty and his unruly crew were looking for him. “Go away, an’ don’t bother me!” shouted the operative. But this had no other effect than to increase the force that some person was exerting upon the bolts of the bedroom door. Visions of sanguinary Mollie Maguires, and an unpleasant feeling that they might possibly have penetrated his disguise, discovered his deception, flitted through his weary brain. But instantly dispersing all such thoughts as mere dreams— ——“Interludes, which Fancy weaves When the monarch, Reason, sleeps”— he leaped from the bed, making considerable stir, lighted a lamp, and said, in a loud, determined, and unfaltering voice: