Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-05-22

were rising and falling as 1T they were about to plunge into the stream. The silver lines of light played over the face of the water. He could see the great steamboats, with their red and green lights and their trailing banners of black smoke, rounding the bends or putting into the wharf. All else was silence. Even the crowd of reckless criminals, craning their necks from the back door, were dumb with excitement as they wait ed the duel between the men upon these black stumps.
 The stars were silent, and they were cold, too. Warde felt that they did not care.
 In his eagerness to get out his pistol, his hand tremhled so that the weapon, catching in his clothing, slipped and fell into the river.
 Where could Fenton be, he won dered in vague way? Had he en- tered the Rest and been disposed of?
 Warde called to him several times, but received no response; but he had no time now to look toward the shore. Old Tom was nearly upon him, and he determined that if he had to die, it should only be after game fight. He braced himself as firmly as he could upon his pile, prepared to use his fists upon his ap- preaching antagonist, and drag him down to death with him.
 Old Tom had just lighted on the pile next to him and was getting ready to leap.
 A pistol shot broke upon the air, the gleaming knife dropped into the stream and Old Tom gave a terrible cry of mingled pain and disgust, and then crouched down and held to his pile to prevent himself from falling into the river, but his strength was not great enough, and he slipped into the swirling water and was dragged away from sight.
 In the meantime a skiff which had been moored on the bank just under the rear of the Rest was pushed out from shore, and in few seconds Fenton had Warde safely within it. Getting outside the line of piles, Fen ton began to pull away. It was shrewd move on his part, for the crowd within the saloon had surged back through the front door, and Bill McGee could be hnaAsd calling for his skiff. Then followed mingled cries of rage and disappointment, and when the boat was detected moving away beyond the row of piles, num- Der of scattering shots were fired.
 Fenton stopped long enough to fire back at the crowd and as it turned out, casually shot away a small sec- ton of MT. McGee's nose. Then he bent te the oars with all his might and pulled for the wharf, which was about a mile away. It did not take him long to get beyond the range of the strange shots that were sent sizzing after him.
 Warde was completely exhausted by the tense strain upon his physical and nervous system, and he lay in the bottom of the boat in sort of stupcr. Gradually, as they ap- preached the wharf, and as he real ized that he had, indeed, escaped with his life, his faculties began to fully, assert themselves.
 When they reached the wharf, and he began to feel more like himself, he gave Fenton an account of his adventures. The latter was profuse in his regrets that he had not gone to Warde's help sooner; but he ex- plained that as he had not heard the whistle, he concluded that the noise in the saloon was only some extra publication on the part of the gBacchanals inside. He had heard the cry for help, and ran down to the