r, and his answer came an hour
ago. We can have the soldiers if we make a formal demand for them."

"But, Tom, son; you wouldn't do that!" protested Caleb tremulously.
Then, getting up to walk the floor as was his wont under sharp stress:
"Let's try to hold out a little spell longer, Buddy. It'll be like fire
to tow; there'll be men killed--men that I've known ever since they were
boys: men killed, and women made widders. Tom, I've seen enough of war
to last me."

"I know," said Tom. None the less, he found a telegraph blank and began
to write the message. There had been shots fired in the night, in a
sally on the inclined railway, and one of them had scored his arm. If
the rioters needed the strong hand to curb them, they should have it.

"Think of what it'll mean for this town that we've built up, son. We'll
have to stay here--'er leastwise, I will, and there'll be blood on the
streets for me to see as long as I walk 'em."

"I know," Tom reiterated, in the same monotonous tone. But his pen did
not pause.

"Then there's your mammy," Caleb pleaded, and now the pen stopped.

"Mother must not know."

"How can we he'p her knowin', Buddy? I tell you, son, the very stones o'
Paradise'll rise up to testify against us, now, and at the last great
day, maybe."

The frown deepened between the young man's eyes.

"The old, old phantom!" he said, half to himself. "Will it never be
laid, even for those who know it to be a myth?" And then to his father:
"It's no use, pappy. I tell you we've got to take this thing by the
neck. See here; that's how near they came to settling me last night,"
and he showed the perforated coat-sleeve.

Caleb Gordon was silenced. He resumed his restless pacing while Tom
signed the call for help, read it over methodically, and placed it
between dampened sheets in the letter-press. He had pushed the electric
button which summoned Stub Helgerson, when the door opened silently and
Jeff Ludlow's boy thrust face and hand through the aperture.

"Well; what is it?" demanded Tom, more sharply than he meant to. The
strain was beginning to tell on his nerves.

"Hit's a letter for you-all from Mr. Stamford at the dee-po," said the
boy. "He allowed maybe you-all'd gimme a nickel for bringin' hit."

The coin was found and passed, and the small boy was whooping and
yelling for Helgerson to come and let him through the gates when Tom
tore the envelope across and read the telegram. It was from the Indiana
ci