opulation idea. At the third visit I looked out back and saw a
man run from the coal-shed to behind the water-tank. I got ready and
waited. Another ran across. I gave him a shot which made him jump.
Then I fired half a dozen shots through the inclosed part below the
tank, and if any of the balls missed the big timbers they must have
gone through. I thought those fellows would keep awhile, and ran back
to the hotel and began to pepper away at the depot again. This I kept
up for an hour, I think, when I caught a glimpse of one of the men
from the tank going back, and thought likely they had both gone.

The outlaws made just one more rally, and it was very well planned,
and if I had not been expecting it it might, after all, have gone hard
with the town of Track's End. All at once they began an uncommonly
lively firing from under the depot platform. I thought this might mean
a charge from the other side, so I started to see. Joyce's store ran
back farther than any of the others on that side of the street, and
had a side window near the back corner; so I went there instead of to
the bank.

It was slow work crawling under the sidewalk and getting up through
the trap-door, but I made it at last and ran to the window. Two of the
men were charging straight across the square for the rear of
Townsend's, carrying a big torch of sticks and twisted hay. The
window was not boarded up, but I stuck my rifle barrel through the
glass and fired at them. The bullet, I think, struck the torch,
because I saw the fire fly in all directions. They dropped it and
retreated in a great panic, while I shot again.

I ran back to the hotel and began shooting once more at the depot.
They never fired another shot. I went over to the bank and from the
back window I could see them going away to the southwest, keeping
under cover of the tank and coal-shed. They came around up on to the
grade a half-mile to the west. I had a look at them through the glass.
Some were walking and some riding. There seemed to be two men on one
horse. I think that more than one of them was wounded, but the
drifting snow now made it hard to see. I went back through the hotel
and down the street to watch them from the tower above the snow. The
pony which had fallen into the tunnel was still there. I noticed it
wore an expensive Mexican saddle, all heavy embossed leather, with a
high cantle, silver ornaments, big tapaderos on the stirrups, and a
horsehair bridle with silver bi