It's only to her you leave me. Old boy, promise
me! If you ever come back and she's still in the ring, you'll go for her
again no matter who else is bidding, your humble servant not excepted."

"Why--yes--I--I promise that. Now, will you promise me?"

"What! let myself--?"

"Yes."

"Ho-o, not by a jug-full! If ever I feel her harpoon in me I'll fight
like a whale! But I promise you this, and warn you, too: That when it
comes to that, a whole platoon of Fred Greenleafs between her and me
won't make a pinch of difference."

To that Greenleaf agreed, and the subject was changed. With shipping
ever on their left and cotton-yards and warehouses for tobacco and for
salt on their right their horses' feet clinked leisurely over the cobble
pavements, between thousands of cotton-bales headed upon the unsheltered
wharves and only fewer thousands on the narrow sidewalks.

So passed the better part of an hour before they were made aware, by
unmistakable odors, that they were nearing the Stock-Landing. There,
while they were yet just a trifle too far away to catch its echoes, had
occurred an incident--a fracas, in fact--some of whose results belong
with this narrative to its end. While they amble toward the spot let us
reconnoitre it. Happily it has long been wiped out, this blot on the
city's scutcheon. Its half-dozen streets were unspeakable mud, its air
was stenches, its buildings were incredibly foul slaughter-houses and
shedded pens of swine, sheep, beeves, cows, calves, and mustang ponies.
The plank footways were enclosed by stout rails to guard against the
chargings of long-horned cattle chased through the thoroughfares by
lasso-whirling "bull-drivers" as wild as they. In the middle of the
river-front was a ferry, whence Louisiana Avenue, broad, treeless,
grassy, and thinly lined with slaughter-houses, led across the plain.
Down this untidy plaisance a grimy little street-car, every half-hour,
jogged out to the Carrollton railway and returned. This street and the
water-front were lighted--twilighted--with lard-oil lamps; the rest of
the place was dark. At each of the two corners facing the ferry was a
"coffee-house"--dram-shop, that is to say.

Messrs. Sam Gibbs and Maxime Lafontaine were president and
vice-president of that Patriots' League against whose machinations our
two young men had been warned by the detectives in St. Charles Street.
They had just now arrived at the Stock-Landing. Naturally, on so
important an