l phenomenon. He found his courage fail at
thought of laying hands upon the man as he was stretched there helpless.

"I--I can't touch him!" he exclaimed. "It'd be--why, it'd be like
handlin' th' dead!"

He drew back, nonplussed, ashamed of his own timidity, yet unable to
overcome it. He had felled the man and meant to kill him, yet, now, he
could not bring himself to lay a hand upon him.

The thought then flashed into his mind of the dreadful contents of his
old game-sack.

"Th' bomb," he said. "Th' dynamighty bomb that I was savin' for th'
revenuers! Let that finish out th' man as set 'em onto me!"

He took the bomb from the old sack with trembling fingers, laid it by
Frank's side and, with a match which flickered because the hands which
held it were unsteady as a palsied man's, set fire to the fuse. Then he
drew off to one side.

"Now, burn!" he said, with set teeth and lowering brow. "Burn! Burn!"

For a second he stood there, watching the sparking sputter of the powder
as it slowly ate its way along the little paper tube. Then, suddenly, a
dreadful thought occurred to him. The girl! What if Madge Brierly should
come to meet the lowlander before the bomb exploded, should see him
lying there, should hurry to him, frightened, and get there just in time
to--

He shuddered. He must protect the girl he loved! She could reach the
side of the endangered man only by means of the small bridge. But one
rope held it in position above the deep, precipitous-sided gully.

He raised his rifle to his shoulder. It was a hard shot, one which most
men would have deemed impossible, but there was a star in line. He
fired. The bridge crashed down, a ruin, the severed rope now dangling
limply, freed of the burden it had held for many years.

"She's safe!" said he.

For another instant he stood studying the spluttering fuse. From what he
had seen at the railroad workings he knew it was destined to burn long
enough so that many workmen could get out of danger before the spark
reached the strong explosive in the cartridge. He need not hurry.

"In three minutes it'll all be ended," he reflected. "He's as helpless
as a baby; he can't strike back, now; it's no more nor he deserves. I'm
goin'."

He straightened up and would have hurried off, had not, at just that
moment, the sweet voice of the girl he loved rung through the brooding,
fragrant evening air, in song.

It brought him to himself, it filled him with a horrified realiz