gasp, though thickly and with pain, as they still strove:

"Seth Wright--wait--let go--wait, Seth--I'm Joel--Joel Rae!"

He managed it with difficulty.

"Joel Rae--Rae--Rae--don't you see?"

He felt the other's tension relax. With many a panting, puffing "Hey!"
and "What's that now?" he was loosed, and drew himself up into a chair
by the saving window. His assailant, a hale, genial-faced man of forty,
sat on the floor where the revelation of his victim's identity had
overtaken him. He was breathing hard and feeling tenderly of his neck.
This was ruffled ornamentally by a style of whisker much in vogue at the
time. It had proved, however, but an inferior defense against the
onslaught of the younger man in his frantic efforts to save his own
neck.

They looked at each other in panting amazement, until the older man
recovered his breath, and spoke:

"Gosh and all beeswax! The Wild Ram of the Mountains a-settin' on the
Lute of the Holy Ghost's stomach a-chokin' him to death. My sakes! I'm
a-pantin' like a tuckered hound--a-thinkin' he was a cussed milishy
mobocrat come to spoil his household!"

The younger man was now able to speak, albeit his breathing was still
heavy and the marks of the struggle plain upon him.

"What does it mean, Brother Wright--all this? Where are the Saints we