.

* * * * *

I was back in my army tent once more, free, with my Shelley, my Keats,
my manuscript....

In despair of ever returning to Hebron, once more I lay under starry
nights, dreaming poetry and comparing myself to all the Great Dead....

With the top of the tent pulled back to let the stars in, I lay beneath
the gigantic, marching constellations overhead--under my mosquito
netting--and wrote poems under stress of great inspiration ... at times
it seemed that Shelley was with me in my tent--a slight, grey form ...
and little, valiant, stocky Keats, too.

* * * * *

After my quarrel with Barton, he tried to oust me from that desirable
site the Bishop's wife had turned over to me ... indeed, he tried to
persuade me to leave the colony. But I would not stir.

There was a young fellow in the "City" named Vinton.... Vinton was the
strong man of the place. He spent three hours every morning exercising,
in minute detail, every muscle of his body ... and he had developed
beautiful muscles, each one of which stood out, like a turn in a rope,
of itself.

Vinton was sent to oust me, by force if need be.

I really was afraid of him when he strode up to me, as I lay there
reading the _Revolt of Islam_ again.

With a big voice he began to hint, mysteriously, that it would be wise
for me to clear out. I showed him that I held a clear title and right to
sojourn there till Christmas, if I chose to, as the bishop's wife had
paid for the site till that time, and had then transferred the use of
the location to me. I showed him her letter ... with the Tallahassee
postmark.

His only answer was, that he knew nothing about that ... that Barton
wanted the place, and, that if I wouldn't vacate peaceably--and he
looked me in the eyes like some great, calm animal.

Though my heart was pounding painfully, against, it seemed, the very
roof of my mouth, I compelled my eyes not to waver, but to look fiercely
into his....

"Are you going to start packing?"

"No, I am not going to start packing."

"I can break your neck with one twist," and he illustrated that feat
with a turn of one large hand in the air.

He came slowly in, head down, as if to pick me up and throw me down.

I waited till he was close, then gave him an upward rip with all my
might, a blow on the forehead that made the blood flow, and staggered
him with consternation. To keep myself still at white