e
barn with a fierce lash-out of her heels and an upheaval of her gaunt
roan flanks that threatened to dash the girl's head against the
lintel of the door.

But Madelon knew with what she had to do, and she bent low in the
saddle and passed out in safety. Then she spared not the mare for
nigh three miles on the New Salem road. It was ten miles to New
Salem, and it did not take long to reach it, riding a horse who went
at times as if all the fiends were in chase, and often sprang out
like a bow into the wayside bushes, and was off with a new spurt of
vicious terror. It was still far from sundown when Madelon Hautville
tied the roan outside the jail where Burr Gordon lay.

Burr was sitting in his cell, which was nothing but a rough chamber
with whitewashed walls and a grated window. It was furnished with a
bed, a table, and a chair. He had an inkstand and a great sheet of
paper on the table, and he was writing a letter when the bolt shot
and the jailer entered with Madelon Hautville.

Burr looked at her with a white, incredulous face. Then he started up
and came forward, but Madelon did not look at him. She turned to the
jailer, Alvin Mead. "I want to see him alone," said she,
imperatively.

"It's again my orders," said the jailer. He was a great man, with an
arm like a crow-bar. He was reputed to have used it as one many a
time at a house-raising.

"I've got to see him alone!"

"He's in here on a charge of murder, and it's again my orders,"
repeated Alvin Mead, like a parrot.

"I've got to see him alone!"

Alvin Mead looked at her irresolutely with his stupid light eyes;
then all his great system of bone and muscle seemed to back out of
the room before her. He shut the door after him, and they heard the
bolt slide.

Madelon turned to Burr. "Tell them," she gasped out--"tell them it
was--I!"

Burr did not speak for a minute; he stood looking at her. "Perhaps I
am not any too much of a man," he said, slowly, at length, "but you
ask me to be a good deal less of a man than I am."

Madelon did not seem to hear him. "I have told them I did it! I have
told them all," said she, "but they won't believe me--they won't
believe me! _You_ must tell them."

"I will die before I will tell them," said Burr Gordon.

Madelon looked at his white face, which was set against hers like a
rock; then she gave a great cry and fell down on her knees before
him. "Tell them," she moaned, "or they will hang you--they will hang
yo