y of young hounds breaking into view of their
quarry, the Plattville men followed.

The most eastward of the debilitated edifices of Six-Cross-Roads was the
saloon, which bore the painted legends: on the west wall, "Last Chance";
on the east wall, "First Chance." Next to this, and separated by two
or three acres of weedy vacancy from the corners where the population
centred thickest, stood-if one may so predicate of a building which
leaned in seven directions-the house of Mr. Robert Skillett, the
proprietor of the saloon. Both buildings were shut up as tight as their
state of repair permitted. As they were furthest to the east, they
formed the nearest shelter, and to them the Cross-Roaders bent their
flight, though they stopped not here, but disappeared behind Skillett's
shanty, putting it between them and their pursuers, whose guns were
beginning to speak. The fugitives had a good start, and, being the
picked runners of the Cross-Roads, they crossed the open, weedy acres in
safety and made for their homes. Every house had become a fort, and the
defenders would have to be fought and torn out one by one. As the guns
sounded, a woman in a shanty near the forge began to scream, and kept on
screaming.

On came the farmers and the men of Plattville. They took the saloon at a
run; battered down the crazy doors with a fence-rail, and swarmed inside
like busy insects, making the place hum like a hive, but with the hotter
industries of destruction. It was empty of life as a tomb, but they beat
and tore and battered and broke and hammered and shattered like madmen;
they reduced the tawdry interior to a mere chaos, and came pouring forth
laden with trophies of ruin. And then there was a charry smell in the
air, and a slender feather of smoke floated up from a second-story
window.

At the same time Watts led an assault on the adjoining house--an assault
which came to a sudden pause, for, from cracks in the front wall, a
squirrel-rifle and a shot-gun snapped and banged, and the crowd fell
back in disorder. Homer Tibbs had a hat blown away, full of buck-shot
holes, while Mr. Watts solicitously examined a small aperture in the
skirts of his brown coat. The house commanded the road, and the rush of
the mob into the village was checked, but only for the instant.

A rickety woodshed, which formed a portion of the Skillett mansion,
closely joined the "Last Chance" side of the family place of business.
Scarcely had the guns of the defe