But the young man's blood tingled with joy as he jumped the court-house fence and went back to his men.

There was something like a smile from Jane Mason in his joy, but chiefly it was the joy that youth has in daring, that thrilled him.

And the next day, or perhaps it was the next,--at any rate, it was a Sunday late in June,--when an armed posse from Minneola came charging down on the town at noon, John ran from his office unseen, over the roofs of buildings upon which as a boy he had romped, and ducking through a second-story window in Frye's store, got two kegs of powder, ran out of the back door, under the exposed piling supporting the building, put the two kegs of powder in a wooden culvert under the ammunition wagons of the Minneola men, who were battling with the town in the street, and taking a long fuse in his teeth, crawled back to the alley, lit the fuse, and ran into the street to look into the revolver of J.Lord Lee--late of the Red Legs--and warn him to run or be blown up with the wagons.

And when the explosion came, knocking him senseless, he woke up a hero, with the town bending over him, and Minneola's forces gone.
And so John and the town had their fling together.

And we who sit among our books or by our fire--or if not that by our iron radiator exuding its pleasance and comfort--should not sniff at that day when blood pulsed quicker and joy was keener, and life was more vivid than it is to-day.
Thirty-five years later--in August, 1908, to be exact--the general, in his late seventies, sat in McHurdie's harness shop while the poet worked at his bench.