"Now, gents," said Hiram to his men, "if this is a spittin'-at-a-crack contest instead of a tub-squirt, I reckon we'd better go to headquarters and find out about it." But at Smyrna's announced determination to raid the referee, Vienna massed itself in the way. It began to look like the good old times, and the spectators started a hasty rush to withdraw from the scene. But Vienna was too openly eager for pitched battle. To stop then and give them what they had been soliciting all day seemed too much like gracious accommodation in the view of Foreman Look. His business just at that moment was with Colonel Gideon Ward, and he promptly thought of a way to get to him. At a signal the intelligent Imogene hooped her trunk about him and hoisted him to her neck. Then she started up the street, brandishing the trunk before her like a policeman's billy and "roomping" in hoarse warning to those who encumbered her path. A charge led by an elephant was not in the martial calculations of the Viennese. They broke and fled incontinently. Perhaps Colonel Gideon Ward would have fled also, but the crowd that had gathered to watch the results of the hose-play was banked closely in the street. "Make way!" bellowed Foreman Look. "There's only one man I want, and I'm goin' to have him. Keep out of my road and you won't get hurt. Now, Colonel Gideon Ward," he shouted, from his grotesque mount, as that gentleman, held at bay partly by his pride and partly by the populace, came face to face with him, "I've been in the circus business long enough to know a fake when I see one. You've been caught at it. Own up!" The Colonel snorted indignantly and scornfully. "You don't own up, then?" queried Hiram. "I'll give you five minutes to stop circusin' and get your tub astraddle that reservoir," snapped the referee. "It occurs to me," went on Hiram, "that you can spit farther if you're up a tree. We want you to do your best when you spit for us." Colonel Ward blinked without appearing to understand. But the foreman of the Smyrna Ancients immediately made it evident that he had evolved a peculiar method of dealing with the case in hand. He drove Imogene straight at the goggling referee. "Up that tree!" roared Hiram. "She'll kill you if you don't." Indeed, the elephant was brandishing her trunk in a ferocious manner. A ladder was leaning against a near-by elm, and Colonel Ward, almost under the trudging feet of the huge beast, tossed dignity to the winds. He ran up the ladder, and Imogene, responding to a cuff on her head, promptly dragged it away from the tree. "Only three minutes left to get Hecla into position," Hiram shouted. "Referee says so. Lively with her!" Around and around in a circle he kept Imogene shambling, driving the crowd back from the tree. The unhappy Colonel was marooned there in solitary state.