e whole blame Fire
De-partment out and enlist 'em before morning! Take 'em down to the Rio
Grande, you hear me?

"And you needn't be afraid of their puttin' it out, if it ketches afire,
neither!"

Tom waved his hand and passed on; but at the open doors of the
Catholic Church he stopped and looked up and down the street, and then,
unnoticed, entered to the dim interior, where the few candles showed
only a bent old woman in black kneeling at the altar. Tom knew where
Elizabeth Carewe knelt each morning; he stepped softly through the
shadowy silence to her place, knelt, and rested his head upon the rail
of the bench before him.

The figure at the altar raised itself after a time, and the old woman
limped slowly up a side aisle, mumbling her formulas, courtesying to the
painted saints, on her way out. The very thinnest lingerings of incense
hung on the air, seeming to Tom like the faint odor that might exhale
from a heavy wreath of marguerites, worn in dark-brown hair. Yet, the
place held nothing but peace and good-will. And he found nothing else
in his own heart. The street was quiet when he emerged from that lorn
vigil; the corner groups had dissolved; shouting youths no longer
patrolled the sidewalks. Only one quarter showed signs of life: the
little clubhouse, where the windows still shown brightly, and whence
came the sound of many voices settling the destinies of the United
States of America. Thither Tom bent his steps, thoughtfully, and with a
quiet mind. There was a small veranda at the side of the house; here he
stood unobserved to look in upon his noisy and agitated friends.

They were all there, from the old General and Mr. Bareaud, to the
latter's son, Jefferson, and young Frank Chenoweth. They were gathered
about a big table upon which stood a punch-bowl and Trumble, his brow
as angry red as the liquor in the cup he held, was proposing a health to
the President in a voice of fury.

"In spite of all the Crailey Grays and traitors this side of hell!" he
finished politely.

Crailey emerged instantaneously from the general throng and mounted a
chair, tossing his light hair back from his forehead, his eyes sparkling
and happy. "You find your own friends already occupying the place you
mentioned, do you, General?" he asked.

General Trumble stamped and shook his fist.

"You're a spawn of Aaron Burr!" he vociferated. "There's not a man here
to stand by your infernal doctrines. You sneer at your own State, yo