now? I guess not, fur you'd not
be making pictures now, You'd be a picture yourself, the kind they put
on the carbolic acid bottle an' mark 'pizen.'"

O'mie paused and looked out dreamily across the valley to the east
plains beyond them.

"I can't tell how fast things wint through me moind that night. You did
some thinkin' yourself, an' you know. 'I can't do Phil's part if I stay
here,' I raisoned, 'an' bedad, I don't belave he can do my part. Bein'
little counts sometimes. It's laid on me to be the sacrifice, an' I'll
kape me promise an' choose the better part. I'll cut an' run.'"

He looked up at my questioning face with a twinkle in his eye.

"'There's only one to save this town. That's Phil's stunt,' I says; 'an'
there's only one to save Marjie. That's my stunt.'"

I caught my breath, for my heart stood still, and I felt I must
strangle.

"Do you mean to say, Thomas O'Meara--?" I could get no fuither.

"I mane, either you or me's got to tell this. If you know it better'n I
do, go ahead." And then more gently he went on: "Yes, I mane to say,
kape still, dear; I'm not very strong yet. If I'd gone up to Cliff
Street afther you to come to her, she'd be gone. If Jean got hands on
her an' she struggled or screamed, as she'd be like to do, bein' a
sensible girl, he had that murderous little short knife, an' he'd swore
solemn he'd have her or her scalp. He's not got her, nor her scalp, nor
that knife nather now. I kept that much from doin' harm. I dunno where
the cruel thing wint to, but it wint, all right.

"And do ye mane to say, Philip Baronet, that ye thought I'd lost me
nerve an' was crude enough to fall in wid a nest av thim Copperheads
an' let 'em do me to me ruin? Or did you think His Excellency, the
Reverend Dodd was right, an' I'd cut for cover till the fuss was over?
Well, honestly now, I'm not that kind av an Irishman."

My mind was in a tumult as I listened. I wondered how O'mie could be so
calm when I durst not trust myself to speak.

"So I run home, thinkin' ivery jump, an' I grabbed the little girl's
waterproof cloak. Your lady friends' wraps comes in handy sometimes.
Don't niver despise 'em, Phil, nor the ladies nather. You woman-hater!"
O'mie's laugh was like old times and very good to hear.

"I flung that thing round me, hood on me brown curls, an' all, an' then
I flew. I made the ground just three times in thim four blocks and a
half to Judson's. You know how the kangaroo looks in the geogra