he rolls his red eyes toward the bed, takes a step in that
direction, reaches a hand, lays hold of the curtain, and is about to
dash it aside.

"John Logan is there!" shouts Dosson, and again the curtain is clutched.

Does he dream of what is beyond? If he could only see the panting,
breathless wretch that leans there eagerly, with lifted gun, ready to
brain him--waiting, waiting for him to come, even wishing that he only
would come--he would start back with terror to the other side.

"He is here! I have found him! Come!"

Carrie, springing forward from her posture of anxiety and terror, grasps
a powder horn from over the mantel piece, jerks out the stopple with her
teeth, and holding it over the fire, cries, with desperation:

"Do it, if you dare! This horn is full of powder, and if any man here
dares to move that curtain, I'll blow you all into burning hell!" The
man loosens his hold on the curtain, and totters back. He is sober
enough to know how terrible is the situation, and he knows her well
enough to believe she will do precisely what she says she will do. "Yes,
I will! We will all go to the next world together; and now let us see
who is best ready to die!"

"Bravo!" shouts Forty-nine.

The sheriff and his men have been moving back slowly from the inspired
girl, standing there by the door of death.

Gar Dosson at last steals around by the sheriff. "But he is here, Mr.
Sheriff," he says. "I tell you he is here in this house. There! For here
is his cap. I found it. I found him, and I want him and I want that
thousand dollars. Search!"

"And I tell you he is not here!" cries the girl, "and you shall not
search, 'less--"

And the horn is lifted menacingly over the fire. "Won't you take my
word?"

"You shall take _my_ word!" shouts Dosson.

"I will take your single word, Miss, against a thousand such men."

And the sheriff puts on his cap, turns, and is about to go.

"But he is here! The thousand dollars, Mr. Sheriff!" cries Dosson.

"Miss, officers sometimes have duties that are more unpleasant to them
than to the parties most concerned. You say he is not here?"

"He is not here, Mr. Sheriff--he is not here!" cries Carrie.

The sheriff twists his cap on his head. "And you will be sworn, as the
others were?" says the sheriff. "So much the better; and that will be
quite satisfactory. Ah, here is the Bible at hand."

And he takes from the little shelf the tattered book. The girl stands
still as st