something
in his hand. He looked at it in stark astonishment. It was an automatic
pistol. In raising himself from the ground his hand had fallen upon it.

"I don't know," said the captive sullenly. Then his gaze fell upon the
gaunt figure of Anderson Crow. A frightful scowl transfigured his face.
Mr. Crow involuntarily drew back a step and reversed the pistol in his
hand, so that its muzzle was pointing at the enemy instead of at
himself. Between imprecations the prisoner managed to convey the fact
that he realized for the first time that it was a human being and not a
log that had brought him to earth.

* * * * *

Mr. Crow found his voice and some of his wits at the same time.

"I'll learn you not to go rampagin' around these parts carryin'
concealed weapons, you good-fer-nothin' scamp! I've got your gun, blast
ye!" He turned triumphantly to the surprised secret-service man. "I took
it away from him soon as I had him down, an'--"

"Holy mackerel!" gasped the operative. "Did--did you head him off
and--and down him? You? Well, I'll be hanged!"

"I sorter knowed he'd strike about here, tryin' to make the woods up
yonder, so I hustled down here to head him off while you fellers--"

"Never mind now," broke in the other. "Tell it to me later. Come on,
both of you. We're not through yet." He urged the burly captive through
the hedge. Marshal Crow followed very close behind.

They found a terrified, excited group on the front porch--three sturdy
females in nightgowns, all with their hands up! Below, revealed by the
light streaming through the open door, stood a man covering them with a
revolver. Fifteen or twenty minutes later Mr. Crow dug the shivering
Eliphalet Loop out of the hay-mow and ordered him forthwith to join his
family in the kitchen, where he would hear something to his advantage.

The happiest man in Bramble County was Eliphalet Loop when he finally
grasped the truth. The prisoner turned out to be his wife's first
husband--he grasped that fact some little time before he realized that
_he_ wasn't even her second husband, owing to certain fundamental
principles in law--and a fugitive from justice. The man was an escaped
convict, the leader of a gang of counterfeiters, and he was serving a
term in one of the federal prisons when he succeeded in his break for
liberty. For many months the United States Secret Service operatives had
been combing the country for him, hot and cold