oy, weeping, saw. Shamed,--burning--he knelt and tried to
staunch the wound with a handkerchief. Travis shook his head: "Let it
out, my son--let it out--it is poison! Let it out!"

Then he lay down again on the ground. It felt sweet to rest.

The boy saw his blood on the ground and he shouted: "Blood,--my
father--blood is thicker than water."

Then the hatred that had burned in his heart for his father, the
father who had begot him into the world, disgraced, forsaken--the
father who had ruined and abandoned his mother, was turned into a
blaze of fury against the blacksmith, the blacksmith whom he had
loved.

Wheeling, he rushed toward the jail, but met the mob pouring
panic-stricken back with white faces, blanched with fear.

Jack Bracken stood alone on the barricade, shoving more cartridges
into his pistol chambers.

The boy, blinded, weeping, hot with a burning revenge, stumbled and
fell twice over dead men lying near the gateway. Then he crawled
along over them under cover of the fence, and kneeling within twenty
feet of the gate, fired at the great calm figure who had driven the
mob back, and now stood reloading.

Jack did not see the boy till he felt the ball crush into his side.
Then all the old, desperate, revengeful instinct of the outlaw
leaped into his eyes as he quickly turned his unerring pistol on the
object from whence the flash came. Never had he aimed so accurately,
so carefully, for he felt his own life going out, and this--this was
his last shot--to kill.

But the object kneeling among the dead arose with a smile of
revengeful triumph and stood up calmly under the aim of the great
pistol, his fair hair flung back, his face lit up with the bravery of
all the Travises as he shouted:

"Take that--damn you--from a Travis!"

And when Jack saw and understood, a smile broke through his
bloodshot, vengeful eyes as starlight falls on muddy waters, and he
turned away his death-seeking aim, and his mouth trembled as he said:

"Why--it's--it's the Little 'Un! I cudn't kill him--" and he clutched
at the cotton-bale as he went down, falling--and Captain Tom grasped
him, letting him down gently.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ATONEMENT

And now no one stood between the prisoner and death but the old
preacher and the tall man in the uniform of a Captain of Artillery.
And death it meant to all of them, defenders as well as prisoners,
for the mob had increased in numbers as in fury. Friends, kindred,
bro