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"Nippy at it, aren't I, Mr. Calvert? That makes me a twelve-shot man once more; but now as the train has come to a standstill on this grade, as I calculated it would we must get to business. Oblige me by taking up the iron safe in the corner yonder and rolling it through the side door out on to the track."

"Do your dirty thieving yourself," said I, sullenly.

He didn't say anything; he lifted up his righthand pistol to a line with my face, steady as though it had been glued there. Then he began slowly to march up the floor of the car towards me, with his mouth drawn up into a leathery grin of cruelty.

I did his bidding then to save my life. The iron chest rolled out with a dull thud on to the red earth outside, took a slow bound, and landed with a crash amongst bushes.

"Good," said Quintal. " Now jump down beside it."

I did so, and he followed me. Then he clapped a finger to his mouth and whistled. Presently the fat man appeared on the gangway of the first-class car, and descended by the steps.

"I've told them," said he, grimly, " and I fancy they understand."

"Quite so," said Quintal. " I'll explain to the others. Ho there, Mr. Engineer!"

No reply.

"In the cab, I say! You needn't be frightened. I won't shoot unless you provoke me."

A scared, dirty face appeared through one of the windows of the little iron pent-house. Quin tal screwed his pistol muzzle into the back of my head, and continued: You see my hostage, and how he's fixed. If you or any one in this train makes the least attempt at annoying my pard or me, I'll blow this gentleman's backbone through his teeth. And now I'll trouble you to reverse that engine of yours and back the train a mile down the grade, and stay there for an hour."

I saw the link-motion traverse, and saw the man shove over his starting lever. Then the engine coughed again, and the train slid away from me. All along the cars windows shot up, and savage, insulted faces appeared, and nervous hands which grasped every kind of weapon. A score of muzzles were concentrated on the train robbers. They, in their turn, made no counter demonstration against the train. Both their revolvers rested against my head. I shut my eyes and awaited death. It seemed impossible for me that those humiliated passengers, now that their prey was cast loose, could refrain from revenge. No one would blame them heavily if I fell; the country would applaud if the train robbers were killed. Hours seemed to pass. Then a voice spoke up, as it seemed, mistily, and from a great distance.

"All right, Mr. Calvert; it's been a mighty close call for you, but I guess they decided not to see our raise this round."

I opened my eyes and looked wildly down the track. The cow-catcher of the engine was just swaying out of sight round a curve.

Quintal's gaze was following mine. Then he turned sharply round and whistled shrilly.

A moment's pause, and then a return whistle came. Two minutes later and a buckboard came down a rough trail, drawn by two horses, driven furiously. Quintal and the fat man took up the safe and put it over the hind axle.

"Two hundred thousand-dollar greenbacks in that iron box," said Quintal, as he and his part ner got on to the middle seat. " More profitable game than quarter-limit poker, I reckon, Mr. Calvert. So long!"

And away went the horses in a big turning circle, and spread out to a gallop in the straight, the buckboard (with the safe balanced across its back axle) leaping after them like a spring. The trail twisted and turned amongst the trees, and the buckboard and the robbers were soon out of sight behind the bank of forest. Well, that part of the show was apparently over for good, but it came to my mind that there was still a final act to be played out. So I lit a cigar and sat down beside the track under the shade of a live-oak to wait for the train.

It seemed an intolerable time in coming up. But I heard the engine clanking up the grade at last, and presently it came up level with me, and I jumped on to a tail-board as it lumbered heavily past.

My reception surprised me; practically there was no reception at all. In the Pullman, where I went, the passengers had apparently forgotten the event already. They were sitting about in the seats, listless with the heat, and for the most part reading, or sleeping, or fanning themselves. Only a small group of three, who were lazily talking, troubled to look up when I entered.

"'Say, here's the Englishman," said one. "Had a pleasant entertainment, sir, with your friends in the woods?"

"I'm satisfied with it," I said. " At least I can respect myself now."

The man delivered himself of a tired smile. "Meaning to say we can't. 'Say, are you a shareholder in this road?"

No."

"Oh, I thought you might be. You seemed to put such a lot of fuss into looking after the safe."

The man yawned, and settled himself back in his seat for sleep. It was the only comment any one seemed wishful to make on my escapade.

They are a surprising people, the Americans, at times.

VIII

SHOT

THE assemblage drew up in Old Man David son's clearing and distributed itself at various points of vantage. The prisoner yawned and sat himself on the stump of a black pine. All hands refreshed themselves with crackers and cheese, and a brand of corn-whisky which burned the throat like fluid lava. The humming-birds left the trumpet vines which sprawled over the posts of the piazza, because the loud chatter frightened them.

By degrees the crackers were done with, and tobacco in its forty different forms imbibed in their place. The meeting rustled and showed itself ripe for business.

The man with the Marlin rifle slipped seven new cartridges into the magazine beneath the barrel, and drew back the low hammer with a suggestive click. Then he laid the weapon tenderly in the crook of his left arm, seated him self on the edge of the piazza, and lifted up his voice in speech:

"Boys, if you're all through, we'll form our selves into a court of inquiry over this matter. Jim, put away the whisky."

Young Davidson walked across to a stump where the demijohn and a glass were standing amid a small swamp of drainings, and carried them away somewhere within the house. It was a simple formality, but the audience felt its weight. Most, unconsciously, straightened them selves for the moment out of their lounge; one man went so far as to comb his hair with his fingers; the prisoner borrowed a wedge of tobacco, stowed it between his molars, and gave an introductory squirt at a black butterfly.

Now," continued the former speaker, " the thing we've got to do right now before proceeding further is to choose a judge for this court. I move for Old Man Davidson. He was raised on the Tennessee side of the Great Smokies, and most of our crowd here are North Carolina tarheelers. But I don't see that matters. I guess he's good enough for us. Who'll second?"

"I will," said a lean man who sat on the snake-fence. " My bean goes for him all the way."

The prisoner nodded easily. " I reckon Old Man Davidson's as white a man as any here," he remarked.

The other members of the court the rest of the audience, that is signified their approval by nods and words. They had most of them partaken in the chase, the fight, and the subse quent capture, and naturally they felt the title to a strong voice in the disposing of the prisoner. The trial was a distinctly parochial affair, and on its issue several things depended. All present were interested directly or indirectly in the distilling of corn-whisky, without deference to the Revenue Laws of the United States. For the maintenance of this industry it was necessary that the delinquent within their power should be made into an example and a warning, for the benefit of the faint-hearted and the trans gressor.

Every one there knew that the captive was foreordained to death; but now that blood heated by the chase had cooled, every one was anxious that the trial should be conducted with due formality. Judge Lynch, fanatical and cruel though he may be when dealing with the African or his kin, can seldom be accused of unfairness or ferocity when handling his fellow-whites.

Old Man Davidson glanced down at the sling which carried his left arm, and shook an untidy grey head. " No, Steve; no, boys; I guess I'd better not hold the bank this round. Ye see it was the prisoner's gun that pumped lead into this arm of mine, and I wouldn't like it to be said afterwards I'd a finger in hanging a man just because he'd had the drop on me." He turned to the prisoner with an explanatory wave of his sound hand. " Not that I've any down on ye for it, Macon County. I guess it was a fair fight right along."

"I guess so," said the prisoner, with a friendly nod. You parted my ha'r. You shot with the best intentions, Old Man, but you shot high. Still, as you say, p'r'aps it's best for you not to take the chair. It might be uncomfortable for you afterwards in some grocery, and you'd have to draw on strangers. People will talk."

"That's level-headed," said the lean man on the snake-fence, and a hum of approval went all round the ring.

"Say, Steve," suggested Davidson, " why not hitch in yourself?"

The man who was nursing the Marlin nodded gravely. " If you put it that way, I don't see why not. I'm not a tenderfoot. I'm a whiskymiller like the rest of you boys. In knocking about, I've chipped in at this yer sort of party before, and I done seen three men hanged out of a possible four. But don't let me push myself forward, boys."

"Wade in, Steve," said Macon County, en couragingly.

"Prisoner at the bar," said Steve, angrily, "you've no vote here. Hold your blasted tongue."

"It seems kind o' hard, doesn't it," said Macon County, humorously, to the audience in general, "that I can't speak now? It don't take much savvy to see that soon I'll for ever have to hold my peace, if Steve doesn't want to lower his record."

Another hum went round the assembly, a mingled buzz of anger and surprise. The man could not have proved more strongly his reck less indifference to what was coming next. The least ridicule or contempt of his court is a mis demeanour which Judge Lynch always deals with fatally.

"See here, Macon County," said Old Man Davidson, with curt emphasis, "we trusted to your word, and so you're not roped up or put to any other inconvenience. But if we have any more of this yer sass, you'll find yourself chawing the toe of my stirrup-iron right away."

Macon County laughed and expectorated, and the trial proceeded.

The accusing evidence was for the most part informal, as the prisoner's crime was too notorious to brook of any contradiction. In fact it consisted merely of a summary from the judge's own lips. He waved a right hand to the mountain side before them, green with unbroken trees to the hot, blue sky-line above. He told how Macon County and another man had there run a blockade still, in a snugly hidden clearing. He spoke of a raid by their common enemy the Revenue, backed by a brace of dare-devil sheriffs, and a cohort of Pinkerton mercenaries. It was all in the ordinary way of business: the salt of their yearly cycle. Macon County happened to be away, peddling the last brew of spirit. The other partner, Hamilton, was in residence, entertaining a couple of friends. The inevitable fight went briskly through its appointed course. The raiders advanced pluckily to the storm, but the frame house made a fortress which they could not reduce; and they left their dead, and picked up the back trail.

Hamilton harassed the retreat with a nine-shot repeating twelve bore; received untouched the fire of the surviving sheriff, and then running in, fired buckshot into his heart at pistol range. It was a good fight, a fair fight, and the heavier side was beaten. Hamilton had done well by the mountain community.

The speaker's words came appreciatively, but in a quiet, even voice. The crowd of ragged, armed men scattered about the clearing were respectfully silent. Reassured, the pair of bronze humming-birds had come back to hover over the red flowers of the trumpet vine.

Then came the recapitulation of the crime itself, and Steve's voice rose into angry vehe mence. " But what does this yer Macon County do on his return? Boys, he was guilty of the most bloodiest treachery ever told of in these mountains. He came back to the clearin'; and from what we know of Hamilton, we may guess that he was welcomed with outstretched hand. Hamilton would mention how he had saved the still and the rest of the rig he wasn't a fellow given to boastin', you'll remember and then he'd suggest that the sooner the pair of them pegged out a new claim, the more chance they'd have of continuing business. But d'ye think Macon County'd bear a hand to set the rig on the waggon? Not he. He said he'd weakened on moonlighting; had got religion or something; and told Hamilton that as a murderer he ought to go and give himself up to the sheriff right away. Now, boys, you'll all bear me out, that to say such a thing to a gentleman of Hamilton's opinions was tantamount to asking him to draw on you; and I guess Macon County wasn't much disappointed when Hamilton did it. Macon County here is a fair tough, but Hamilton, when he got roused, was a holy terror; and I allow the way they fit must have been a caution to wild cats."

"I'd 'a' given twenty-five dollars to seen it," murmured the lean man on the snake-fence.

"But this yer fight went on queerly. Neither was knifed, nor gouged, nor lead-poisoned; neither was much the worse 'cept in losing scraps of fur and hide and so on; and Macon County finished out top-side almost as sound as you see him here to-day. ' But,' says you, ' there's nothing wrong in two gentlemen havin' a pleasant set-to of this kind over an argument, so where's the harm done? ' Wait a minute, boys. What does this yer Macon County do next? Havin' bunched the sense out of Hamilton by thumping his head with a rock, he next proceeds to rope him up, hands and heels, and take him to Ashville in his own waggon. And that's where Block Hamilton is this day, in Ashville Calaboose; and with the evidence they've got against him, he'll be electro cuted as sure as we can't pay for law enough to save his life. Of course there must have been an almighty pile of dollars handed across to Macon County over this job "