d she was so much
interested in the fight that she turned all parts of her countenance
into the firelight, slapping her hands together, laughing like a man,
dropping her oaths at the right places, and crying:

"I bet my money on little Owen Daw! Cy James ain't no good, by God!
Yer's whiskey a-plenty for Owen Daw if he gouges him. Give it to him,
Owen Daw! Shame on ye, Cy James!"

There was occasional servility and deference to this woman from members
of the crowd, however they were absorbed in the fight. She was what is
called a "chunky" woman, short and thick, with a rosy skin, low but
pleasing forehead, coal-black hair, a rolling way of swaying and moving
herself, a pair of large black eyes, at once daring, furtive, and
familiar, and a large neck and large breast, uniting the bull-dog and
the dam, cruelty and full womanhood.

Behind this woman, whom Phoebus thought to be Patty Cannon herself,
the moonlight from the rear came through the door in the older and main
building, shining quite through the house, and Phoebus saw that the
rear door was also open and was unguarded.

He took the first chance, therefore, of dodging around the corner of the
bar, intending to pass around the north gable of the house and dart up
the stairs by the unwatched door; but he had barely got out of sight
when a loud hurrah burst from the crowd as a feeble voice was heard
crying "Enough, enough!" followed by jeers rapidly approaching.

The large outside chimney, where Phoebus now was, had an arched cavity
in it large enough to contain a man, being the chimney of two different
rooms within, whose smoke, uniting higher up, ascended through one stem.
Into this cavity Phoebus dodged, in time to avoid the beaten party to
the fight, the grown man, who staggered blindly by towards a well, his
face dripping blood, and he was sobbing babyishly; but the concealed
sailor heard him say, in a whining tone:

"She set him on me; I'll make her pay for it."

Several of the partisans or tormentors of this craven followed after
him, and Jimmy himself fell in at the rear, and, instead of going with
the rest towards the well, where the loser was bathing his face,
Phoebus softly stepped over the low sill of the back door, the woman's
back being turned to him, and, as he had anticipated, a stairway
ascended there out of a large room, which answered the purposes of
parlor and hall, dining and gambling room, as Jimmy drank in at one
glance, from seeing table