lease note. I would have helped the
people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would
not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in
spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded multitude
of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to all those
weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on "The Seven," who
would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have been bribed
to desist. But, when I was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my
fellow men, that the people wear the yoke because they have not yet become
intelligent and competent enough to be free, then and not until then did I
abandon the hopeless struggle.

And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own neglected
personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal triumph.

There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief in
the value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won--and in my humble
opinion never have been won--in the graveyards. Alive and afoot and armed,
and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic and respectable
robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs killing me and the
bandits dividing my estate?

But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the opinion
of my fellow men. They sought my life when they should have been hailing me
as a deliverer; now, they look up to me because they falsely believe me
guilty of an infamy.

My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what
Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have me
detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Saturday afternoon
we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the shore. When the
launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me, lounging aft in a
mass of cushions under the awning. "We are going ashore," said he. "The
order has come."

I had a sudden sense of loneliness. "I'll take you down to New York," said
I. "I prefer to land my guests where I shipped them."

As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was rapidly
readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the upheaval.
The "financiers"--the same old gang, except for a few of the weaker
brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders, who had slipped in during the
confusion--were employing all the old, familiar devices for deceiving