ow what's good for yourself."

"I've seen your kind before," the constable retorted. "An' I've got my
little persuader with me. Take a squint."

The shaft of light shifted, and out of the darkness, illuminated with
ghastly brilliance, they saw thrust a hand holding a revolver. This hand
seemed a thing apart, self-existent, with no corporeal attachment, and
it appeared and disappeared like an apparition as the thumb-pressure
wavered on the switch. One moment they were staring at the hand and
revolver, the next moment at impenetrable darkness, and the next moment
again at the hand and revolver.

"Now, I guess you'll come," the constable gloated.

"You got another guess comin'," Billy began.

But at that moment the light went out. They heard a quick movement on
the officer's part and the thud of the light-stick on the ground. Both
Billy and the constable fumbled for it, but Billy found it and flashed
it on the other. They saw a gray-bearded man clad in streaming oilskins.
He was an old man, and reminded Saxon of the sort she had been used to
see in Grand Army processions on Decoration Day.

"Give me that stick," he bullied.

Billy sneered a refusal.

"Then I'll put a hole through you, by criminy."

He leveled the revolver directly at Billy, whose thumb on the switch did
not waver, and they could see the gleaming bullet-tips in the chambers
of the cylinder.

"Why, you whiskery old skunk, you ain't got the grit to shoot sour
apples," was Billy's answer. "I know your kind--brave as lions when it
comes to pullin' miserable, broken-spirited bindle stiffs, but as
leery as a yellow dog when you face a man. Pull that trigger! Why, you
pusillanimous piece of dirt, you'd run with your tail between your legs
if I said boo!"

Suiting action to the word, Billy let out an explosive "BOO!" and Saxon
giggled involuntarily at the startle it caused in the constable.

"I'll give you a last chance," the latter grated through his teeth.
"Turn over that light-stick an' come along peaceable, or I'll lay you
out."

Saxon was frightened for Billy's sake, and yet only half frightened. She
had a faith that the man dared not fire, and she felt the old familiar
thrills of admiration for Billy's courage. She could not see his face,
but she knew in all certitude that it was bleak and passionless in the
terrifying way she had seen it when he fought the three Irishmen.

"You ain't the first man I killed," the constable threatened. "I'm an