Tombstone epitaph., 1917-01-07

lighted targets. men NnoeNeE sa" Cal Douglas would crook fo-efnger on trigger and the error of the jury would be rectifed. The others would follow with a volley at random for good measure.
 It was almost too easy. IL seemed a shame to snatch 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 uptnrned hat-brim. there came the reports of several rifes-hut 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 rife gave out brief, gurg,ing sound as an oath was stifed of in hemorrhage of the throat, and pitched forward on his face. After that the figure lay without stirring. its own blood reckoning the rife 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.
 or 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 of 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 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 untTam- meled by intervening rock and timber. The man who fired first knew this, for he had not heard the perfectly i'm itated QUayer of "scritCh-owls" which was to signify a common readiness. But as he had eyed his Crouching vic tim across his rife-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 moment would be to wait too long. So the others had to fire blindly through the black Undergrowth al 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 fee the other way-into the Ha- vey territory and astride stolen Havey | horses It was every man for himself, and they had not paused 10 count noses. They hUrriedly swung them ] selves into saddles al the remote end of the line of hitched mounts and gal ! loped pe!l-mell down the road toward ! the cabin of FIetch McNash.
 When the theft of the horses was discovered Anse Havey sent pursuing parties to ride the roads in both direc- tions.
 It had seemed to Havey wiser to withhold his warning from all save those whom be needed to use. To all | the rest the affair had cone without notice, and the hue and cry which fol lowed the rife-shots was genuine in it's 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 straightened it's limbs So that they should not stifen in such
 grotesque attitude The face. with the yellow lantern-light shining down on it, was the face of boy Of twenty
 Its thin lips were set in grim smile of satisfaction, for death had over.
 taken him without a suspicion of it's
 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 Watt" exclaimed
 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 horsemer
 were gaining slowly on those that fed
 The murder squad had failed and must bear back to Milt McBriar, il