The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-11-27

before them the doors and windows as
lighted targets. Then whoever saw |
Cal Douglas would crook fOrefnger On |
trigger and the error Of the jury |
would be rectifed. The others would |
follow with a voIIey at random for |
good measure.
It 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 window, braced
himself on one knee and peered for
ward under his upturned hat-brim,
there came the reports of several
rif1es-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 it's horses.
The man who had braced his knee
and cooked his rife gave out brief,
gurgling sound as an oath was stified
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
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
OFF. Had the man who fired on the
one 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 fired first knew this,
for he had not heard the perfectly i'm
| itated quaver of "scritch-owIs" which
| wa " SISn11g COh14OA 1Sd01nCSS
But as he had eyed his crouching vic
tim across his riffe-sights he had also
been able to look beyond him, and had
seen 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. II they were to
carry away unpunctured skins they
must fee 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-
TONS
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 rif1e-shots was genuine in
its excitement.
But in a very few moments the
pandemonium fell away and suIlen-
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 its limbs sc
, that they should not stiffen in such
grotesque attitude. The face, with
the yellow lantern-light shining dowI
on it, was the face of boy of twenty
i It's thin lips were set in a grim smile
of satisfaction, for death had over
: taken him without suspicion of it:
/ coming:
Perhaps, had a photograph of hi!
' retina been taken, it would have dis
2 closed the portrait of Cal Dougla.
: pausing at the open window
!. Hits little Nash Watt!" exclaimeC
; a surprised voice. using the diminu
( tive which in the mountains takes tn,
o place of junior and stays with maj
well on in life. The victim who hat
t been designated to avenge the dealt
e of Noah Watt had been Noah Watt
y younger brother.
n Meanwhile the pursuing horsemeI
were gaining slowly on those that fed
o The murder squad had failed an
It must bear back to Milt McBriar, |
II The farmers OF the university sa
that the harvester ants might becom
II a menace to CROPS and have iaunche