Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1915-11-25
CHAPTER VI.

When, just before sunset Yesterday
afternoon, verdict of acQuittal for
Cal Douglas had come from the jury
room, the town of Peril had once more
held its breath and doors had closed
and the streets had cleared Of such as
wished to remain noncombatants. But
with no comment or criticism Milt
McBriar mounted his horse and rode
out Of town, shaping his course over
the hills toward his own house. Fol-
lowing his example with equal quiet,
his kinsmen mounted, too, and disap-
peared
As for Cal Douglas, he reserved any
enthusiasm his vindicatiOn may have
brought to his heart until he was back
again in the depths of the hills. He
and his kinsmen turned their horses
by a shorter and sleeper trail to the
house where the dance was going for
ward with shutting and fiddling and
passing Of the jug.
When Milt McBriar and his fellows
started home an informer or two from
the HaVey ranks kept them in view,
themselves unseen, until they passed
through the gap and started down the
other side of the ridge into their own
domain
That they were being so watched
was either known to the McBriars or
assumed by them. But a picked squad
on fresh mounts was waiting over
there in a place where the road ran
deep through the forest and laurel.
and this squad was equipped with re-
peating rifles. Milt McBriar himself
did not go with them. He had made
all his arrangements in advance, and
1t was not seemly that the chief
should take personal part in an exc
cution which he had decreed.
Let me hear the news, boys" Old
Milt had said with a wave of his
hand, and then he had ridden on stoI-
idly toward his own domain.
The house where the dance was be-
ing held stood between the knees of
two hills.
Near midnight a half-Gozen men
who had not been invited rode care
fully over an almost obliterated trail
which wound blindly through the
hills at the back of the place and
hitched their horses in a rock-sur-
rounded hollow a half-mile from the
house. Other horses and mules were
hitched all along the country road, but
these belonged to the legitimate
guests.
AS the half-dozen men. whose arri-
val had been so cautiously accom-
phshed, began slipping down, each
holding his own course in the cover of
the laurel there was nothing to indi-
cate that any warning had gone ahead
Of them
From the houses with their yellow
windows and their open doors came
no note of apprehensi0n-no inttma-
ton of suspicion. A medley of voices,
now and then a laugh, din of scrap
ing feet, and the whine and boom of
ftddles gave out a careless chorus to
the night
Slowly, with an adept craft that
hardly broke a twig underfoot, three
of the new arrivals hitched their way
forward to point of vantage down
near the road.
They went crouched low, holding to
the shadows with rifles thrust out
ahead and faces almost smiling in
their grim fOTetaste of sure success.
In few moments they would have
before them the doors and windows as
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 voIley at random for
good measure.
1t was almost too easy It 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
ritles-but they were not the rifles
of the McBriar squad, and they came
not from the hills in front, but from
ZIG Id VI q dJ TIE DdCh. 1n6S DTOhS
from directly between the carefully
picked squad and its horses.
The man who had braced his knee
and cooked his rife gave out brief,
gurgling sound as an oath was stifled
off in hemorrhage of the throat, and
pitched forward on his face After
that the figure lay without stirring, its
own blood reddening the rife whose
trigger-guard pressed against its fore
head.
The doors vomited men. There was
q trailing and ragged outburst of fire
arms, and many dark figures plunged
here and there across the silvered
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 as close as might prove
safe when the moment came for flight
But they, too, found themselves cut
of. Had the man who fired on the