an ache in the throat which Martin divined so
strongly that it made his own throat ache. He regretted that he had
spoken. It seemed so tawdry what he had offered her--mere money--compared
with what she offered him. He offered her an extraneous thing with which
he could part without a pang, while she offered him herself, along with
disgrace and shame, and sin, and all her hopes of heaven.

"Don't let's talk about it," she said with a catch in her voice that she
changed to a cough. She stood up. "Come on, let's go home. I'm all
tired out."

The day was done, and the merrymakers had nearly all departed. But as
Martin and Lizzie emerged from the trees they found the gang waiting for
them. Martin knew immediately the meaning of it. Trouble was brewing.
The gang was his body-guard. They passed out through the gates of the
park with, straggling in the rear, a second gang, the friends that
Lizzie's young man had collected to avenge the loss of his lady. Several
constables and special police officers, anticipating trouble, trailed
along to prevent it, and herded the two gangs separately aboard the train
for San Francisco. Martin told Jimmy that he would get off at Sixteenth
Street Station and catch the electric car into Oakland. Lizzie was very
quiet and without interest in what was impending. The train pulled in to
Sixteenth Street Station, and the waiting electric car could be seen, the
conductor of which was impatiently clanging the gong.

"There she is," Jimmy counselled. "Make a run for it, an' we'll hold 'em
back. Now you go! Hit her up!"

The hostile gang was temporarily disconcerted by the manoeuvre, then it
dashed from the train in pursuit. The staid and sober Oakland folk who
sat upon the car scarcely noted the young fellow and the girl who ran for
it and found a seat in front on the outside. They did not connect the
couple with Jimmy, who sprang on the steps, crying to the motorman:-

"Slam on the juice, old man, and beat it outa here!"

The next moment Jimmy whirled about, and the passengers saw him land his
fist on the face of a running man who was trying to board the car. But
fists were landing on faces the whole length of the car. Thus, Jimmy and
his gang, strung out on the long, lower steps, met the attacking gang.
The car started with a great clanging of its gong, and, as Jimmy's gang
drove off the last assailants, they, too, jumped off to finish the job.
The car dashed on, leaving the