ind, came flying out into the moonlight--straight to
Harkless. There was a second report; the rifle-shot was answered by
a revolver. William Todd had risen up, apparently from nowhere, and,
kneeling by the pasture bars, fired at the flash of the rifle.

"Jump fer the shadder, Mr. Harkless," he shouted; "he's in them elders,"
and then: "Fer God's sake, comeback!"

Empty-handed as he was, the editor dashed for the treacherous elder-bush
as fast as his long legs could carry him; but, before he had taken six
strides, a hand clutched his sleeve, and a girl's voice quavered from
close behind him:

"Don't run like that, Mr. Harkless; I can't keep up!" He wheeled about,
and confronted a vision, a dainty little figure about five feet high, a
flushed and lovely face, hair and draperies disarranged and flying. He
stamped his foot with rage. "Get back in the house!" he cried.

"You mustn't go," she panted. "It's the only way to stop you."

"Go back to the house!" he shouted, savagely.

"Will you come?"

"Fer God's sake," cried William Todd, "come back! Keep out of the road."
He was emptying his revolver at the clump of elder, the uproar of his
firing blasting the night. Some one screamed from the house:

"Helen! Helen!"

John seized the girl's wrists roughly; her gray eyes flashed into his
defiantly. "Will you go?" he roared.

"No!"

He dropped her wrists, caught her up in his arms as if she had been a
kitten, and leaped into the shadow of the trees that leaned over the
road from the yard. The rifle rang out again, and the little ball
whistled venomously overhead. Harkless ran along the fence and turned in
at the gate.

A loose strand of the girl's hair blew across his cheek, and in the moon
her head shone with gold. She had light-brown hair and gray eyes and a
short upper lip like a curled rose-leaf. He set her down on the veranda
steps. Both of them laughed wildly.

"But you came with me!" she gasped triumphantly.

"I always thought you were tall," he answered; and there was afterward a
time when he had to agree that this was a somewhat vague reply.

CHAPTER VI. JUNE

Judge Briscoe smiled grimly and leaned on his shot-gun in the moonlight
by the veranda. He and William Todd had been trampling down the
elder-bushes, and returning to the house, found Minnie alone on the
porch. "Safe?" he said to his daughter, who turned an anxious face upon
him. "They'll be safe enough now, and in our garden."

"Maybe I