d a
Winchester was in his left hand.

"Stand where you are--everybody!"

There was the sound of hurrying feet within the jail. There was the
clang of an iron door, the bang of a wooden one, and in five minutes
from within the tall wooden box came the sharp click of a hatchet and
then--dully:

"T-H-O-O-MP!" The dangling rope had tightened with a snap and the wind
swayed it no more.

At his cell door the Red Fox stood with his watch in his hand and his
eyes glued to the second-hand. When it had gone three times around its
circuit, he snapped the lid with a sigh of relief and turned to his
hammock and his Bible.

"He's gone now," said the Red Fox.

Outside Hale still waited, and as his eyes turned from the Tollivers
to the Falins, seven of the faces among them came back to him with
startling distinctness, and his mind went back to the opening trouble
in the county-seat over the Kentucky line, years before--when eight men
held one another at the points of their pistols. One face was missing,
and that face belonged to Rufe Tolliver. Hale pulled out his watch.

"Keep those men there," he said, pointing to the Falins, and he turned
to the bewildered Tollivers.

"Come on, Judd," he said kindly--"all of you."

Dazed and mystified, they followed him in a body around the corner of
the jail, where in a coffin, that old Jadd had sent as a blind to his
real purpose, lay the remains of Bad Rufe Tolliver with a harmless
bullet hole through one shoulder. Near by was a wagon and hitched to it
were two mules that Hale himself had provided. Hale pointed to it:

"I've done all I could, Judd. Take him away. I'll keep the Falins under
guard until you reach the Kentucky line, so that they can't waylay you."

If old Judd heard, he gave no sign. He was looking down at the face of
his foster-brother--his shoulder drooped, his great frame shrunken, and
his iron face beaten and helpless. Again Hale spoke:

"I'm sorry for all this. I'm even sorry that your man was not a better
shot."

The old man straightened then and with a gesture he motioned young Dave
to the foot of the coffin and stooped himself at the head. Past the
wagon they went, the crowd giving way before them, and with the dead
Tolliver on their shoulders, old Judd and young Dave passed with their
followers out of sight.

XXX

The longest of her life was that day to June. The anxiety in times of
war for the women who wait at home is vague because they are merc