as the state
constable, and his instructions were to get the fugitive and kill him.
But the fugitive here did a very strange thing. Through the handkerchief
which it was now seen he wore tied over his mouth, he told the running
policeman to go to perdition, and then with seeming suicidal intent
rushed into the burning barn. From it he emerged a moment later,
dragging a figure bound hand and foot, blackened with smoke, and with
its clothing smoldering in a dozen places; a figure which alternately
coughed and swore in a strangled whisper, but which found breath for
a loud whoop almost immediately after, on its being immersed, as it
promptly was, in a nearby horse-trough.

Very soon after that the other cars arrived. They drew up and men
emerged from them, variously clothed and even more variously armed, but
all they saw was the ruined embers of the barn, and in the glow
five figures. Of the five one lay, face up to the sky, as though the
prostrate body followed with its eyes the unkillable traitor soul of
one Cusick, lately storekeeper at Friendship. Woslosky, wounded for
the second time, lay on an automobile rug on the ground, conscious
but sullenly silent. On the driving seat of an automobile sat a young
gentleman with an overcoat over a pair of silk pajamas, carefully
inspecting the toes of his right foot by the light of a match, while
another young gentleman with a white handkerchief around his head was
sitting on the running board of the same car, dripping water and rather
dazedly staring at the ruins.

And beside him stood a gaunt figure, blackened of face, minus eyebrows
and charred of hair, and considerably torn as to clothing. A figure
which seemed disinclined to talk, and which gave its explanations
in short, staccato sentences. Having done which, it relapsed into
uncompromising silence again.

Some time later the detectives returned. They had made no further
captures, for the refugees had known the country, and once outside the
light from the burning barn search was useless. The Chief of Police
approached Willy Cameron and stood before him, eyeing him severely.

"The next time you try to raid an anarchist meeting, Cameron," he said,
"you'd better honor me with your confidence. You've probably learned a
lesson from all this."

Willy Cameron glanced at him, and for the first time that night, smiled.

"I have," he said; "I'll never trust a pigeon again." The Chief thought
him slightly unhinged by the night'