le with a
motion of disgust at the cowardice of Sandlot. The bottle burst with a
jangling of glass.

On the loose board roof Philo Gubb raised his head suddenly. For an
instant he imagined he was a disembodied spirit, his body having been
dissolved in benzine, but as he became wider awake he was conscious of
a noise beneath him. Wixy was shifting twenty or thirty bricks that
had fallen from the kiln upon a truss of straw, used the last winter
to cover new-moulded bricks to protect them from the frost against
their drying. He was preparing a bed. He muttered to himself as he
worked, and Philo Gubb, placing his eye to a crack between the boards
of the roof, tried to observe him. The darkness was so absolute he
could see nothing whatever.

He heard Wixy stretch out on the straw, and in a minute more he heard
the heavy breathing of a sleeper. Wixy was not letting any cowardice
disturb his repose, at all events, and Philo Gubb considered how he
could best get himself off the roof.

The sleeping man was immediately beneath him; the ladder was a full
ten yards away; every motion made the loose boards complain. Looking
down, Mr. Gubb saw that the top of the kiln reached within a few feet
of where he lay, and that the partially removed sides had left a
series of giant steps.

Mr. Gubb loosened his pistols in his belt. Now that he had the chicken
thief so near, he meant to capture him. With the utmost care he slid
one of the boards of the roof aside and put his long legs into the
opening thus made, feeling for the kiln until he touched it, and when
he had a firm footing on it he lowered the upper part of his body
through the roof.

Five feet away a cross-timber reached from one pillar of the roof to
another, and just below that was one of the steps of the kiln. Philo
Gubb lighted his dark lantern, and casting its ray, saw this
cross-piece. If he could jump and reach it he could drop to the lower
step and avoid the danger of bringing the side of the kiln down with
him. He slipped the lantern into his pocket, reached out his hands,
and jumped into the dark.

For an instant his fingers grappled with the cross-piece; he struggled
to gain a firmer hold; and then he dropped straight upon the sleeping
Wixy. He alighted fair and square on the murderer's stomach, and the
air went out of Wixy in a sudden _whoof_!

Philo Gubb, in the unreasoning excitement of the moment, grappled with
Wixy, but the unresistance of the man told tha