puty, with several special
assistants, rode from Mount Pisgah toward Matalette's section.

The night was dark, rainy and cloudy; the horses stumbled over roots and
logs in the imperfectly made road; the low-hanging branches spitefully
cut the faces of the riders, and brought several hats to grief, and
snatched the sheriff's pipe out of his mouth.

And yet the sheriff seemed in excellent spirits. To be sure, he softly
whistled the air of, "Jordan is a hard road to travel," which was the
popular air twenty-five years ago, but there was a merry tone to his
whistle. He stopped whistling suddenly, and remarked to the constable:

"Got notice to-day of another new counterfeit. Five hundred offered for
arrest and conviction on _that_. Hope we can prove _that_ on Matalette's
gang. We can go out of politics, and run handsome farms of our own, if
things go all right to-night. Don't know but I'd give my whole share,
though, to whoever would arrest Helen. It's a dog's life, anyhow, this
bein' a sheriff. I won't complain, however, if we get that gang
to-night."

The party rode on until they were within a mile of Matalette's section,
when they reined their horses into the woods, dismounted, left a man on
watch, and approached the dwelling on foot.

Reaching the fence, the party halted, whispered together for a moment,
and silently surrounded the house in different directions.

The sheriff removed his boots, walked noiselessly around the house, saw
that he had a man at each door and window, and posted one at the
cellar-door. Then the sheriff put on his boots, approached the front
door, and knocked loudly.

There was no response. The light was streaming brightly from one of the
windows, and the sheriff tried to look in, but the thick curtain
prevented him. He knocked again, and louder, but still there was no
response. Then he became uneasy. He was a brave man when he knew what
was to be met, but now all sorts of uncomfortable suspicions crossed his
mind; the rascals might be up-stairs waiting for a quiet opportunity to
shoot down at him, or they might be under the small stoop on which he
stood, and preparing to fire up at him. They might be quietly burning
their spurious money up-stairs, so as to destroy the evidence against
them; they might be in the cellar burying the plates.

The sheriff could endure the suspense no longer. Signaling to him two of
his men, he, with a blow of a stick of wood, broke in the window-sash.
As, imm