the town was marked for doom.
Propped up on his pillows, his face to the open east window, his thin,
white hands folded, he talked quietly as of a thing in which he had had
little part.

"Ye see, Phil, the Almighty made us all different, so He could know us,
an' use us when He wanted some partic'lar thing that some partic'lar one
could do. When folks puts on a uniform in their dress or their thinkin',
they belong to one av two classes--them as is goin' to the devil like
convicts an' narrow churchmen, or them as is goin' after 'em hard to
bring 'em into line again, like soldiers an' sisters av charity; an'
they just have to act as one man. But mainly we're singular number. The
Lord didn't give me size."

He looked up at my broad shoulders. I had carried him in my arms from
his bed to the east window day after day.

"I must do me own stunt in me own way. You know mebby, how I tagged
thim strangers till, if they'd had the chance at me they'd have fixed
me. Specially that Dick Yeager, the biggest av the two who come to the
tavern."

"The chance! Didn't they have their full swing at you?"

"Well, no, not regular an' proper," he replied.

I wondered if the cruelty he had suffered might not have injured his
brain and impaired his memory.

"You know I peeked through that hole up in the shop that Conlow seems to
have left fur such as me. Honorable business, av coorse. But Tell and
Jim, they was hid behind the stack av wagon wheels in the dark
corner--just as honorable an' high-spirited as meself, on their social
level. I was a high-grader up on that ladder. Well, annyhow, I peeked
an' eavesdropped, as near as I could get to the eaves av the shop, an' I
tould Father Le Claire all I could foind out. An' then he put it on me
to do my work. 'You can be spared,' he says. 'If it's life and death,
ye'll choose the better part.' Phil, it was laid on all av us to choose
that night."

His thin, blue-veined hand sought mine where he lay reclining against
the pillows. I took it in my big right hand, the hand that could hold
Jean Pahusca with a grip of iron.

"There was only one big enough an' brainy enough an' brave enough to
lead the crowd to save this town an' that was Philip Baronet. There was
only one who could advise him well an' that was Cam Gentry. Poor old
Cam, too near-sighted to tell a cow from a catfish tin feet away. Without
you, Cam and the boys couldn't have done a thing.

"Can ye picture what would be down there