But even as he threw the boy down, a shrill screaming pierced through the quiet of the night, and from the back of the house a little girl ran shrieking.  “He is killing him!  He is killing him!”

It was little Elizabeth Ketzel, who had been let in through the back window to hear Kalman sing, and who, at the first appearance of trouble, had fled by the way she had entered, meeting Rosenblatt as he appeared dragging the insensible boy through the snow.  Her shrieks arrested the man in his murderous purpose.  He turned and fled, leaving the boy bleeding and insensible in the snow.

As Rosenblatt disappeared, a cutter drove rapidly up.

“What’s the row, kiddie?” said a man, springing out.  It was Dr. Wright, returning from a midnight trip to one of his patients in the foreign colony.  “Who’s killing who?”

“It is Kalman!” cried Elizabeth, “and he is dead!  Oh, he is dead!”

The doctor knelt beside the boy.  “Great Caesar!  It surely is my friend Kalman, and in a bad way.  Some more vendetta business, I have no doubt.  Now what in thunder is that, do you suppose?” From the house came a continuous shrieking.  “Some more killing, I guess.  Here, throw this robe about the boy while I see about this.”

He ran to the door and kicked it open.  It seemed as if the whole company of twenty or thirty men were every man fighting.  As the doctor paused to get his bearings, he saw across the room in the farthest corner, Irma screaming as she struggled in the grasp of Samuel Sprink, and in the midst of the room Paulina fighting like a demon and uttering strange weird cries.  She was trying to force her way to the door.

As she caught sight of the doctor, she threw out her hands toward him with a loud cry.  “Kalman—­killing!  Kalman—­killing!” was all she could say.

The doctor thrust himself forward through the struggling men, crying in a loud voice, “Here, you, let that woman go!  And you there, let that girl alone!”

Most of the men knew him, and at his words they immediately ceased fighting.

“What the deuce are you at, anyway, you men?” he continued, as Paulina and the girl sprang past him and out of the door.  “Do you fight with women?”

“No,” said one of the men.  “Dis man,” pointing to Sprink, “he mak fun wit de girl.”

“Mighty poor fun,” said the doctor, turning toward Sprink.  “And who has been killing that boy outside?”

“It is that young devil Kalman, who has been trying to kill Mr. Rosenblatt,” replied Sprink.

“Oh, indeed,” said the doctor, “and what was the gentle Mr. Rosenblatt doing meantime?”

“Rosenblatt?” cried Jacob Wassyl, coming forward excitedly.  “He mak for hurt dat boy.  Dis man,” pointing to Sprink, “he try for kiss dat girl.  Boy he say stop.  Rosenblatt he trow boy back.  Boy he fight.”

“Look here, Jacob,” said Dr. Wright, “you get these men’s names—­this man,” pointing to Sprink, “and a dozen more—­and we’ll make this interesting for Rosenblatt in the police court to-morrow morning.”