“You know, whin I come down to your house the first thing in the mornin’ an’ found Jack had gone out to Schooley’s, I was purty mad, fer we had kind of arranged t’ go out there togither, if Allan didn’t show up; an’ it didn’t seem t’ me that he was playin’ just fair, though o’ course I understand now that he didn’t have time t’ call me. Well, I made up my mind I’d git out there as quick as I could, so I hopped the first train I could ketch, which was second ninety-eight, and I reckon I must have jumped off not more’n half an hour after Jack an’ Mamie did—though mind you, you hadn’t said anything about Mamie goin’ along, an’ I reckon I know why,” and here he stopped for a long look deep into Mrs. Welsh’s eyes. “Go ahead with the story,” she said. “Though I don’t say you ain’t right.” “O’ course I’m right,” said Reddy, confidently. “Well, as I was sayin’, I got off the train an’ wandered around fer some time, an’ then struck the road an’ started t’ foller it; an’ purty soon I seed smoke over the tree-tops an’ after that I didn’t loiter none, I tell you. “Well, sir, when I run around the corner o’ that house, I purty nigh dropped dead in my tracks. There on the ground lay about a dozen men, as it seemed to me; there was the lunatic, an’ a sight he was, with his face all covered with blood; an’ there was Jack, an’ his face was covered with blood, too, but not his own, the lunatic’s; and there was Allan West, lookin’ deader ’n a salt mackerel; there was five other fellys, some a-layin’ nice an’ still, an’ some kind o’ squirmin’ around an’ moanin’; an’ there was Mamie, with Allan’s head in her lap a-lookin’ most dead herself; an’ when I see her settin’ there, I tell you my heart jest seemed to swell up inside me like it was a-goin’ t’ bust. “Well, I didn’t know no more what to do than a rabbit. There was eight men whose lives depended on me, more or less; not that I’d ’a’ cared about the lunatic, but even without him there was seven, an’ me no doctor, neither. But Mamie certainly did show what was in her. Where she learned it I don’t know, but she set me t’ pumpin’ them fellers’ arms up an’ down n’ blowin’ down their throats—Jack an’ Allan first—an’ it wasn’t a great while till Jack came around. He was kind o’ weak an’ giddy, but not fer long; an’ in ten or fifteen minutes, we had three others all right; an’ jest about then, the lunatic began to come to, so we tied his hands an’ feet t’ make sure he didn’t git away, or sneak up on any of us from behind an’ cave our heads in. An’ when he did come to, he laid there an’ cussed somethin’ frightful. I wanted t’ hit him with the rock ag’in, but Mamie said no, to gag him, an’ we stuffed his mouth full of his own dirty clothes, an’ I guess he wished he’d kept ’em cleaner. “But what worried us most of all was Allan. He jest laid there limp as a rag, an’ Mamie workin’ with him, purty nigh as white as he was.”