ace. The strain became unbearable. All of a sudden something seemed
to break within me, and my muscles began to ripple and shake. I had no
power to stop it. More than that, the feeling was so terrible that I
knew I would welcome discovery as a relief.

"Sh-s-s-h!" whispered some one below.

I turned my eyes down to the peep-hole. Bud had moved over squarely into
the light of the door. He was bending over something. Then he extended
his hand, back uppermost, toward Buell. On the back of that broad brown
hand were pieces of leaf and bits of pine-needles. The trembling of
my body had shaken these from the brush on the rickety loft. More than
that, in the yellow bar of sunlight which streamed in at the door there
floated particles of dust.

Bud silently looked upward. There was a gleam in his black eyes, and his
mouth was agape. Buell's gaze followed Bud's, and his face grew curious,
intent, then fixed in a cunning, bold smile of satisfaction. He rose to
his feet.

"Come down out o' thet!" he ordered, harshly. "Come down!"

The sound of his voice stilled my trembling. I did not move nor breathe.
I saw Buell loom up hugely and Bud slowly rise. Herky-Jerky's boots
suddenly stood on end, and I knew then he had also risen. The silence
which followed Buell's order was so dense that it oppressed me.

"Come down!" repeated Buell.

There was no hint of doubt in his deep voice, but a cold certainty and a
brutal note. I had feared the man before, but that gave me new terror.

"Bud, climb the ladder," commanded Buell.

"I ain't stuck on thet job," rejoined Bud.

As his heavy boots thumped on the ladder they jarred the whole cabin. My
very desperation filled me with the fierceness of a cornered animal.
I caught sight of a short branch of the thickness of a man's arm,
and, grasping it, I slowly raised myself. When Bud's black, round head
appeared above the loft I hit it with all my might.

Bud bawled like a wounded animal, and fell to the ground with the noise
of a load of bricks. Through my peep-hole I saw him writhing, with both
hands pressed to his head. Then, lying flat on his back, he whipped out
his revolver. I saw the red spurt, the puff of smoke. Bang!

A bullet zipped through the brush, and tore a hole through the roof.

Bang! Bang!

I felt a hot, tearing pain in my arm.

"Stop, you black idiot!" yelled Buell. He kicked the revolver out of
Bud's hand. "What d'you mean by thet?"

In the momentary silence that