ses along the way presented faces utterly blank and devoid of
life. Brent would have wondered at that, had he not had his brief talk
with Mallows. Now he understood. Respectable folks had withdrawn to
shelter behind barred doors and tightly shuttered windows until such
time as the unleashed element of outlawry should evacuate the town.
The law-abiding were, in effect, undergoing a siege and avoiding the
ill-lighted streets.

But the light at the court-house square was relatively bright and as
Brent crossed in front of the squat and shadowy bulk of the old
jail-house--empty now, though it should have been full--he made out a
figure hastening about him in a circuitous fashion at a dog trot as
though bent on arriving at the hostelry first. That, then, must have
been the presence he had felt at his back, and a fresh alarm assailed
him. It was the figure of Bud Sellers.

When at last Alexander had gone up the several steps that led to the
closed door of the tavern, and stood for a moment, evidently hesitating
with disgust for the babel within, Brent drew back into a convenient
shadow and looked anxiously about for the other figure. It had
disappeared.

That hostelry was the property of one D. W. Kelly, a huge and unclean
lout of a man and the establishment was as wholesome a place as a bear
pit, and no more so.

It was not with complacency that the landlord saw his house given over
to the destructive caprices of a drunken and uncontrollable mob. He
had no means of freeing himself of his guests. When his slatternly
wife had complained: "Them miners an' loggers jest louzes up a body's
house," he had wagged his head dejectedly and spread his great
black-nailed hands. "If that's ther wu'st thing they does hit'll be a
plum God's blessin'," he replied. "Ther law p'intedly fo'ces a
tavern-keeper ter sleep an' eat man an' beast--ef so be they kin pay."

Now the motley crew was in unchallenged possession--and would remain in
possession until the river went down and fords were once more passable.
That a reign of terror would prevail so long as they tarried in town,
in no wise dampened their own exuberance of spirit.

Two or three traveling salesmen had been marooned here, but since the
beginning of this saturnalia they had not been in evidence beyond the
thresholds of their own rooms.

There was no bar at D. W. Kelly's tavern and none was needed, since
every man was duly and individually provisioned and since even