of remaining on the spot as though she feared to miss anything that
bore the least resemblance to the coming of the last great day. But
she suddenly obeyed her husband, who was yelling at her over the edge
of the hole, and ran and fell in by his side.

Missiles that screamed overhead signalized to the scattered
fugitives the utter disintegration of T. Taylor's stove. The hearth
mowed off a crumbly chimney on the Luce house, and flying fragments
crushed out sash in the windows of the abandoned main part. Cap'n
Sproul was the first one to reappear, coming from behind a distant
tree. There was a hole in the ground where T. Taylor's wagon had
stood.

"Daminite!" screamed a voice. Mr. Luce was dancing up and down on
the edge of his hole, shaking another stick of the explosive. "I'll
show ye whuther I'm an outlaw or not! I'll have this town down on
its knees. I'll show ye what it means to squdge me too fur. I give
ye fair warnin' from now on. I'm a desp'rit' man. They'll write novels
about me before I'm done. Try to arrest me, will ye? I'll take the
whole possy sky-hootin' with me when ye come." He was drunk with power
suddenly revealed to him.

He lifted the sack out of the hole and, paying no heed to some apparent
expostulations of Mrs. Luce, he staggered away up the hillside into
the beech growth, bowed under his burden. And after standing and
gazing for some time at the place where he disappeared, the first
selectman trudged down the road to where Hiram was waiting for him,
soothing his trembling horse.

"Well," said the old showman, with a vigorous exhalation of breath
to mark relief, "get in here and let's go home. Accordin' to my notion,
replevinin' and outlawin' ain't neither sensible or fashionable or
healthy. Somethin' that looked like a stove-cover and sounded like
a howlaferinus only just missed me by about two feet. That critter's
dangerous to be let run loose. What are you goin' to do about him?"

"Ketch him," announced the Cap'n, sturdily.

"Well," philosophized Hiram, "smallpox is bad when it's runnin'
round loose, but it's a blastnation sight worse when it's been
ketched. You're the head of the town and I ain't, and I ain't
presumin' to advise, but I'd think twice before I went to runnin'
that bag o' dynamite into close corners. Luce ain't no account, and
no more is an old hoss-pistol, but when a hoss-pistol busts it's a
dangerous thing to be close to. You let him alone and mebbe he'll
quiet down."