nding at the one door which still afforded a chance of exit,
Kinnard Towers for the last time raised his arms.

"Throw down yore guns, men, an' go out with yore hands up," he yelled,
seeking to be heard above the din of conflagration. "Myself, I aims ter
stay hyar!"

A few caught the words and plunged precipitately out, unarmed, with
hands high in surrender; and others, seeing that they did not fall,
followed with a sheep-like imitation--but some, already struggling with
the asphyxiation that clawed at their throats, writhed uneasily on the
floor--and then lay motionless.

Kinnard Towers, with a bitter despair in his eyes, and yet with the
leonine glare of defiance unquenched, stood watching that final
retreat. He saw that at the stockade gate, they were being passed out
and put under guard. It was in his own mind, when he had been left
quite alone to walk deliberately out, fighting until he fell.

About him the skies were red and angry. His death would come with a
full and pyrotechnic illumination, seen of all men, and it would at
least be said of him that he had never yielded.

So picking up a rifle from the floor, he deliberately examined its
magazine and efficiency. After that he stepped out, paused on the
doorstep, and fired defiantly at the open gate of the stockade.

There was a spatter of bullets against the walls at his back, but he
stood uninjured and defiantly laughing. Without haste he walked
forward. Then a tall figure, with masked face came running toward him
and he leveled the rifle at its breast. But he was close to the gate
now, and the man plunged in, in time to strike his barrel up and bear
him to the ground.

Outside the stockade stood, herded, the prisoners, and at their front,
the posse of deputies brooded over Kinnard Towers and Tom Carmichael,
both shamefully hand-cuffed.

Bear Cat Stacy looked over his captives who, taking their cue from
Towers himself, remained doggedly silent.

"You men," he said crisply, "all save these two kin go home now--but
when ther co'te needs ye ye've got ter answer--an ye've got ter speak
ther truth."

As they listened in surprised silence Turner's voice became sterner:
"Ef ye lies ter ther High co'te thar's another co'te thet ye kain't lie
ter. Now begone."

Then Bear Cat turned to the tall figure that had defeated Kinnard's
determination to die uncaptured.

"We've done seed ther manner of yore fightin'," he said in the voice of
one who would confer t