had drawn in the dusty
road he permitted his eye to gauge the distance afresh, then his hand
was seen to pass deftly to his left hip pocket, the long barrel of the
rifle pistol was leveled, the piece cracked, and the candle's yellow
flame vanished.

The judge pocketed his pistol, walked down the street, and with never a
glance toward the tavern reentered his house.

The next morning it was discovered that sometime during the night the
judge had tacked his anonymous communication on the court-house door;
just below it was another sheet of paper covered with bold script:

"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Judge Slocum Price assumes that the above was
intended for him since he found it under his office door on the morning
of the twenty-fifth inst.

"Judge Price begs leave to state it as his unqualified conviction that
the writer is a coward and a cur, and offers a reward of five thousand
dollars for any information that will lead to his identification.

"Judge Price has stated that he would conduct an intelligently directed
investigation of the Norton murder mystery without remuneration. He
has the honor to assure his friends that he is still willing to do so;
however, he takes this opportunity to warn the public that each day's
delay is a matter of the utmost gravity.

"Furthermore, judge Price avails himself on this occasion to say that
he has no wish to avoid personal conclusions with the murderers and
cutthroats who are terrorizing this community; on the contrary, he will
continue earnestly to seek such personal conclusions."

CHAPTER XXIV. THE CABIN ACROSS THE BAYOU

Tom Ware was seated alone over his breakfast. He had left his bed as
the pale morning light crept across the great fields that were alike his
pride and his despair--what was the use of trying to sleep when sleep
was an impossibility! The memory of that tragedy at the church door was
a black horror to him; it gave substance to his dreams, it brought him
awake with writhing lips that voiced his fear in the dead stillness of
the night. The days were scarcely less terrible. Steeled and resolute
as his will could make him, he was not able to speak of what he had seen
with composure. Being as he was in this terribly perturbed state he had
shirked his morning toilet and presented a proportionately haggard
and unkempt appearance. He was about to quit the table when big Steve
entered the room to say there was a white fellow at the door wished to
see him