Gallegher and Other Stories | Page 7

voice said, "Put out those lights. Don't youse know no better than
that?" This was Keppler, and he welcomed Mr. Dwyer with effusive
courtesy.
The two men showed in the stream of light, and the door closed on
them, leaving the house as it was at first, black and silent, save for the
dripping of the rain and snow from the eaves.
The detective and Gallegher put out the cab's lamps and led the horse
toward a long, low shed in the rear of the yard, which they now noticed
was almost filled with teams of many different makes, from the
Hobson's choice of a livery stable to the brougham of the man about
town.
"No," said Gallegher, as the cabman stopped to hitch the horse beside
the others, "we want it nearest that lower gate. When we newspaper
men leave this place we'll leave it in a hurry, and the man who is
nearest town is likely to get there first. You won't be a-following of no
hearse when you make your return trip."
Gallegher tied the horse to the very gate-post itself, leaving the gate
open and allowing a clear road and a flying start for the prospective
race to Newspaper Row.
The driver disappeared under the shelter of the porch, and Gallegher
and the detective moved off cautiously to the rear of the barn. "This
must be the window," said Hefflefinger, pointing to a broad wooden
shutter some feet from the ground.
"Just you give me a boost once, and I'll get that open in a jiffy," said
Gallegher.
The detective placed his hands on his knees, and Gallegher stood upon
his shoulders, and with the blade of his knife lifted the wooden button
that fastened the window on the inside, and pulled the shutter open.

Then he put one leg inside over the sill, and leaning down helped to
draw his fellow-conspirator up to a level with the window. "I feel just
like I was burglarizing a house," chuckled Gallegher, as he dropped
noiselessly to the floor below and refastened the shutter. The barn was
a large one, with a row of stalls on either side in which horses and cows
were dozing. There was a haymow over each row of stalls, and at one
end of the barn a number of fence-rails had been thrown across from
one mow to the other. These rails were covered with hay.
[Illustration with caption: Gallegher stood upon his shoulders.]
In the middle of the floor was the ring. It was not really a ring, but a
square, with wooden posts at its four corners through which ran a heavy
rope. The space inclosed by the rope was covered with sawdust.
Gallegher could not resist stepping into the ring, and after stamping the
sawdust once or twice, as if to assure himself that he was really there,
began dancing around it, and indulging in such a remarkable series of
fistic manoeuvres with an imaginary adversary that the unimaginative
detective precipitately backed into a corner of the barn.
"Now, then," said Gallegher, having apparently vanquished his foe,
"you come with me." His companion followed quickly as Gallegher
climbed to one of the hay-mows, and crawling carefully out on the
fence-rail, stretched himself at full length, face downward. In this
position, by moving the straw a little, he could look down, without
being himself seen, upon the heads of whomsoever stood below. "This
is better'n a private box, ain't it?" said Gallegher.
The boy from the newspaper office and the detective lay there in
silence, biting at straws and tossing anxiously on their comfortable bed.
It seemed fully two hours before they came. Gallegher had listened
without breathing, and with every muscle on a strain, at least a dozen
times, when some movement in the yard had led him to believe that
they were at the door. And he had numerous doubts and fears.
Sometimes it was that the police had learnt of the fight, and had raided
Keppler's in his absence, and again it was that the fight had been

postponed, or, worst of all, that it would be put off until so late that Mr.
Dwyer could not get back in time for the last edition of the paper. Their
coming, when at last they came, was heralded by an advance-guard of
two sporting men, who stationed themselves at either side of the big
door.
"Hurry up, now, gents," one of the men said with a shiver, "don't keep
this door open no longer'n is needful."
It was not a very large crowd, but it was wonderfully well selected. It
ran, in the majority of its component parts, to heavy white coats with
pearl buttons. The white coats were shouldered by long blue coats with
astrakhan fur trimmings, the wearers of