Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1915-10-21

0 az oA0 49,
lighted targets. Then whoever saw
Cal Douglas would crook forefinger on
trigger and the error of the jury
would be rectifed. The others would
follow with a volley at random for
good measure.
1t was almost too easy. 1t seemed
a shame to snatch a full and red re-
venge with such scant effort.
Then, as the foremost figure, crouch
ing in easy range of a window, braced
himself on one knee and peered for
ward under his upturned hat-brim.
there came the reports of several
rifies-but they were not the rifles
of the McBriar squad, and they came
not from the hills in front, but from
the laurel at the back. They broke
from directly between the carefully
picked squad and its horses.
The man who had braced his knee
and cooked his rifle gave out a brief,
gurgling sound as an oath was stifed
off in a hemorrhage of the throat, and
pitched forward on his face. After
that the figure lay without stirring, its
own blood reddening the rifle whose
trigger-guard pressed against its fore
head.
The doors vomited men. There was
a trailing and ragged outburst of fire
arms, and many dark figures plunged
here and there across the silyered
spaces where the shadows did not fall.
OF the six men who had crept down,
three had lain within one hundred
yards of the house when the shots
came from their rear. The other three
were off at the side, ready to bring
up the horses IS close as might prove
safe when the moment came for flight.
But they, too, found themselves cut
off. Had the man who fired on the
n who was about to fire waited one
minute longer, there would have been
more deaths than the single one. His
colleagues would then have been, like
himself, covering their respective vic
tims-victims who confidently thought
themselves executioners. But as it
was, they had not quite yet worked
themselves into positions untram-
meled by intervening rock and timber.
The man who fred first knew this,
for he had not heard the perfectly i'm
itated quaver of "scritch-owis" which
was to signify a common readiness.
But as he had eyed his crouching vic
tim across his ritle-sights he had also
been able to look beyond him, and had
see the figure Of Cal Douglas pause
at the lighted window. He knew that
to wait a moment would be to wait too
long. So the others had to fire blindly
through the black underground at
speeding shadows-and they missed.
The fleeing murder squad melted
back into the black timber, and some
of them, signaling with the call of
frog and owl, came together in tenn
porary safety. They dared not go to
their own horses, since they might be
discovered in the effort. The road
that led into the McBriar country
would be watched. If they were to
carry away unpunctured skins they
must flee the other way-into the Ha-
vey territory and astride stolen Havey
horses. 1t was every man for himself,
and they had not paused to count
noses. They hurriedly swung them
selves into saddles at the remote end
of the line of hitched mounts and gal
Hoped pell-mell down the road toward
the cabin of Fletch McNash.
When the theft of the horses was
discovered Anse Havey sent pursuing
parties to ride the roads in both direc-
tions.
1t had seemed to Havey wiser to
withhold his warning from all save
those whom he needed to use. To all
the rest the affair had come without
notice, and the hue and cry which fol.
lowed the ~rife-shots was genuine in
its excitement.
But in a very few moments the
pandemonium fell away and sullen-
ness supplanted the shouting. The
mountains behind, where several men
were stealthily seeking escape and
many others were stalking them, lay
silent in the moonlight.
A hundred yards beyond the win
dow a small and inquisitive knot Of
men gathered around a figure that
had hunched forward, sprawling on a
cooked rife. Someone turned the fig
ure up and Strengthened it's limbs so
that they should not stiffen in such
grotesque attitude. The face, with
the yellow lanternlight shining down
on it, was the face of a boy of twenty.
Its thin lips were set in a grim smile
of satisfaction, for death had over
taken him without a suspicion of its
coming.
Perhaps, had a photograph of his
retina been taken, 1t would have dis
closed the portrait of Cal Douglas
pausing at the open window.
Hits little Nash Wattl" exclaimed
a surprised voice, using the diminu.
tive which in the mountains takes the
place Of junior and stays with a man
well on In life. The victim who had
been designated to avenge the death
Of Noah Watt had been Noah Watts
younger brother.
Meanwhile the pursuing horsemen
were gaining slowly on those that fed.
The murder squad had failed and
] must bear back to Milt McBriar, If