hing but the electric bells on the floors above and floors below
calling for the elevator: "buzz, buzz--buzz; buzz, buzz--buzz." He
walked along State Street at the busy hour of noon and all about him
in the throngs was the dull impact of canes upon the pavement, "thud,
thud--thud; thud, thud--thud." As he rode home in the street car at
nightfall, back of him in the train at street corner after corner he
heard passengers jingle the bell for stopping, "ding, ding--ding;
ding, ding--ding."

Although Dr. McDill was a man of great native resolution and intrepid
in the face of known and seen dangers, the horrors of the invisible
forces of death everywhere surrounding him so wore at his soul that he
returned down town and spent the night at a hotel. On the morrow, he
severely condemned himself for this yielding to fear, for on the front
steps of his house lay the dead form of his great watch dog, Jacques.
There were evidences of a struggle in which the assailants had not
been unscathed. Bits of cloth lay about and examining the stains of
blood that plentifully blotched the walk, he discovered that some of
it was human blood.

"Ah," he said, in deep self-reproach, "if I had stayed here as I
should, I would have been able to fight with poor Jacques and brought
low some of my enemies. How easily I could have fired from the upper
windows as Jacques made their presence known. It is evident that the
noise of the struggle was so great that the fiends were afraid to
continue the attack and ran away."

Philosophers and poets have found a theme for dissertation in the fact
that the dog leaves his own kindred to dwell with man and fights them
in behalf of his master. It has ever seemed to me that this were but
half of the tale, for full many a man loves his dog better than the
rest of mankind, and so the devotion of the race of dogs finds return
and recompense. Outside his own family, there was no living thing in
the city of Chicago which had so dwelt in the affections of Dr. McDill
as the dog Jacques. Of the truth of this, he had had but dim
realization until now and he was like to burst with sorrow and with
hatred of the vile beings who had marked him and his for slaughter.
Lifting the stiff form of his humble comrade, for the first time did
he observe a poniard thrust in the poor beast's throat. The blade
impaled a piece of paper and upon it was written the word "Knock."

"Knock!" cried the doctor: "but henceforth it shall be I t