fagots. Other torches burned with a menacing assurance of
power beyond them along the road, and far up the distant slopes
glittered reinforcements of scattered tongues of flame.

The figures nearest at hand stood steady with an ominous and spectral
stillness, and their ghostliness was enhanced by the fitful torch-light
in which the whole picture leaped and subsided with a phantom
uncertainty of line and mass.

Black Tom came back and shook his head. "Hit hain't no manner of use,"
he announced. "We mout es well give up. I reckon we kin still come
cl'ar in co'te."

But the old lion, whose jaws and fangs had always proved strong enough
to crush, was of no mind to be caged now.

"Come cl'ar! Hell's blazes!" he roared with a livid face. "Don't ye see
what's done come ter pass? He'll take these damn' outlaws over thar an'
no jury won't dast ter cl'ar us. If we quits now we're done."

Towers leaped, with an astonishing agility to the counter of the bar
and raised his clenched fists high above his head.

"Men!" he thundered, "hearken ter me! Don't make no mistake in thinkin'
thet ef ye goes out thar, ye'll hev any mercy showed ye. This is ther
finish fight betwixt all ther customs of yore blood--an' this damn'
outlaw's new-fangled tyranny! He don't aim jest ter jail me an' Tom--he
aims ter wipe out every mother's son thet's ever been a friend ter me.

"We've got solid walls around us now--but any man thet goes out thar,
goes straight ter murder. Es fer me I don't aim ter be took alive--air
ye of ther same mind? Will ye fight?"

His flaming utterance found credence in their befuddled minds. They
could not conceive of merciful treatment from the man they had hounded
and sought for months to murder from ambush. Inside at least they could
die fighting, and nods of grim assent gave their answer.

"Ther stockade hain't no good now," Towers reminded them. "They're
already inside hit, but from them upsta'r winders we kin still rake 'em
severe an' plentiful whilst they're waitin' fer our answer. Let them
winders be filled with men, but don't let no man shoot till he heers my
pistol--then all tergether--an' give 'em unshirted hell."

So, answering the reprieve with deceit, the block house, which had, for
a generation, been an infamous seat of power, remained silent until a
pistol snapped out and then from every window leaped spiteful jets of
powder lightning and the solid roar of a united volley. That was the
answer and as a