“Now, get away out of that, ye spalpeens, or I’ll jist blow the head off some of yez!” The shaking of the lock soon ceased, and the steps of several persons were heard retreating. Once more seeking his pillow, the weary man endeavored to obtain some repose. But in a little while he again distinguished the stealthy fall of human feet nigh the entrance of his apartment. Dougherty, for the second time, was trying to force admission to his presence. “We _must_ get in!” exclaimed the drunken man. Exasperated at this long-continued annoyance, McKenna turned out, struck a light, donned a portion of his garments, suddenly unlocked and opened the door, and brought the forbidding, dark muzzle of his heavy seven-shooter plump in Dougherty’s face, demanding his business with him at such an hour and such a place. Hesitating somewhat, and dodging his head from side to side to escape McKenna’s aim, he faltered out: “I can’t find me partner! Didn’t know but he might be in this room!” “I don’t know anything about your partner, if you have wan, an’ I give ye due notice that I’ve had plenty and to spare of you an’ your eternal racket! So get out of this, quick! An’ don’t ye come banging about here any more! Sure, an’ if ye do, I’ll make serious trouble wid ye!” Perfectly quieted down by the pistol, the detective’s undaunted front and resolute language, Dougherty and his companions took themselves off, invoking anything but compliments upon the man who had sent them away so unceremoniously. Again McKenna extinguished his lamp and courted repose. For a short time he slept fitfully and ill at ease, but, about an hour before daylight, he was aroused by sounds of a desperate row in progress below stairs. Pistol-shot after pistol-shot echoed along the corridors and through the rooms, making the hearer think that a small army of bushwhackers were attacking the house, and practising to see how many bullets they could lodge in the weatherboarding. He finally started up, unable longer to bear the confusion, and, after putting on his clothing, took the light in his left hand, and with the right resting on the butt of his revolver, which he held ready for immediate use, in his outside coat pocket, noiselessly opened the door, made his exit, and moved toward the supposed scene of conflict. Not much accustomed to the sense of fear, the detective thought, as he bent his steps in the direction of the warfare, and as the jar and other evidences of deadly strife smote more clearly upon his ear, he really experienced a feeling akin to that of a soldier when receiving the “baptism of fire” upon his initial battle-ground. At least there was a queer creeping of the flesh, a chilly blast over his back and shoulders, a novel rising up of the scalp, as he entered the dark, deserted bar-room, and still heard, as though in the distance, the rattle of small arms. The fight was evidently losing none of its intensity. “Perhaps it has been transferred