contempt for the men against him that I hated his not standing up to
them. It was to hide the fact that he had stepped back, that I jumped
in front of him and pretended to restrain him. I tried to make it look
as though had I not interfered, he would have struck at Heinze.

The German had swung around toward the men behind him, as though he
were subpoenaing them as witnesses.

"I call him a coward to his face!" he shouted. But when he turned
again I was standing in front of Aiken, and he halted in surprise,
glaring at me. I don't know what made me do it, except that I had
heard enough of their recriminations, and was sick with
disappointment. I hated Heinze and all of them, and myself for being
there.

"Yes, you can call him a coward," I said, as offensively as I could,
"with fifty men behind you. How big a crowd do you want before you
dare insult a man?" Then I turned on the others. "Aren't you ashamed
of yourselves," I cried, "to all of you set on one man in your own
camp? I don't know anything about this row and I don't want to know,
but there's fifty men here against one, and I'm on the side of that
one. You're a lot of cheap bullies," I cried, "and this German drill-
sergeant," I shouted, pointing at Heinze, "who calls himself an
officer, is the cheapest bully of the lot." I jerked open the buckle
which held my belt and revolver, and flung them on the ground. Then I
slipped off my coat, and shoved it back of me to Aiken, for I wanted
to keep him out of it. It was the luck of Royal Macklin himself that
led me to take off my coat instead of drawing my revolver. At the
Point I had been accustomed to settle things with my fists, and it had
been only since I started from the coast that I had carried a gun. A