‘I could not keep them back.’
‘It was well done,’ he said; and I felt proud. I confess I was thankful to be so well out of it, for Graeme got off with a bone in his wrist broken, and I with a couple of ribs cracked; but had it not been for the open barrel of whisky which kept them occupied for a time, offering too good a chance to be lost, and for the timely arrival of Nelson, neither of us had ever seen the light again.
We found Craig sound asleep upon his couch. His consternation on waking to see us torn, bruised, and bloody was laughable; but he hastened to find us warm water and bandages, and we soon felt comfortable.
Baptiste was radiant with pride and light over the fight, and hovered about Graeme and me giving vent to his feelings in admiring French and English expletives. But Abe was disgusted because of the failure at Slavin’s; for when Nelson looked in, he saw Slavin’s French-Canadian wife in charge, with her baby on her lap, and he came back to Shaw and said, ‘Come away, we can’t touch this’; and Shaw, after looking in, agreed that nothing could be done. A baby held the fort.
As Craig listened to the account of the fight, he tried hard not to approve, but he could not keep the gleam out of his eyes; and as I pictured Graeme dashing back the crowd thronging the barricade till he was brought down by the chair, Craig laughed gently, and put his hand on Graeme’s knee. And as I went on to describe my agony while Idaho’s fingers were gradually nearing the knife, his face grew pale and his eyes grew wide with horror.
‘Baptiste here did the business,’ I said, and the little Frenchman nodded complacently and said—
‘Dat’s me for sure.’
‘By the way, how is your foot?’ asked Graeme.
‘He’s fuss-rate. Dat’s what you call—one bite of—of—dat leel bees, he’s dere, you put your finger dere, he’s not dere!—what you call him?’
‘Flea!’ I suggested.