His one thought now
was to reach his bunk. He was sick, good and sick, and those
premonitory symptoms, if they had been arrested, were still with him.
The day had been too much for him--the jostling on the platform, mostly
when he had fought his way through the rear of the crowd for fear of an
unguarded recognition on the part of the Butcher; then the walking he
had done; and, lastly, that run from the sheriff's shed.

P. Walton, with swimming head and choking lungs, reeled a little as he
went along. It was farther, quite a lot farther, to go by the fields,
and he was far enough down from Carruthers' now so that it would not
make any difference anyhow, even if the Butcher's escape had been
discovered--which it hadn't, the town was too quiet for that. P.
Walton headed into a cross street, staggered along it, reached the
corner of Main Street--and, fainting, went suddenly down in a heap, as
the hemorrhage caught him, and the bright, crimson "ruby" stained his
lips.

Coming up the street from a conference in the super's office, Nulty,
the express messenger, big, brawny, hard-faced, thin-lipped, swung
along, dragging fiercely at his pipe, scowling grimly as he reviewed
the day's happenings. He passed a little knot of Polacks, quite
obviously far gone in liquor--and almost fell over P. Walton's body.

"Hullo!" said Nulty. "What the deuce is this!" He bent down for a
look into the unconscious man's face. "The super's clerk!" he
exclaimed--and stared around for help.

There was no one in sight, save the approaching Polacks--but one of
these hurriedly, if unsteadily, lurched forward.

"Meester Walton!" announced Ivan Peloff genially. "Him be sick--yes?"

"Where's he live?" demanded Nulty, without waste of words.

"Him by me live," said Ivan Peloff, tapping his chest proudly as he
swayed upon his feet. He called to his companions, and reached for P.
Walton's legs. "We take him by us home."

"Let him alone!" said Nulty gruffly, as the interior of a Polack shanty
pictured itself before his eyes.

"Him by me live," repeated Ivan Peloff, still reaching doggedly, if
uncertainly, for P. Walton's legs.

"Let him alone, I tell you, you drunken Guinea!" roared Nulty suddenly,
and his arm went out with a sweep that brushed Ivan Peloff back to an
ultimate seat in the road three yards away. Without so much as a
glance in the direction taken by the other, Nulty stepped up to the
rest of the Polacks, stared into their