Needles stood beside me. Before I
could move he dashed forward and hit that feller
in the middle of his forehead and knocked him
flat. Harry had hit Bap McNoll the cock fighter. I
got up next to the kettle then and took the scum
off it. Fetched one of them devils a slap with the
side of my hand that took the skin off his face
and rolled him over and over. When I looked again
Armstrong was going limp. His mouth was open and
his tongue out. With one hand fastened to his
right leg and the other on the nape of his neck
Abe lifted him at arm's length and gave him a toss
in the air. Armstrong fell about ten feet from
where Abe stood and lay there for a minute. The
fight was all out of him and he was kind of dazed
and sick. Abe stood up like a giant and his face
looked awful solemn.

"'Boys, if there's any more o' you that want
trouble you can have some off the same piece,' he
said.

"They hung their heads and not one of them made a
move or said a word. Abe went to Armstrong and
helped him up.

"'Jack, I'm sorry that I had to hurt you,' he
said. 'You get on to your horse and go home.'

"'Abe, you're a better man than me,' said the
bully, as he offered his hand to Abe. 'I'll do
anything you say.'"

So the Clary's Grove gang was conquered. They were to make more trouble
but not again were they to imperil the foundations of law and order in
the little community of New Salem.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] From _A Man For the Ages_. Copyright, 1919, by the Bobbs-Merrill
Company. Used by special permission of the publishers.

[Illustration]

VIII.--The End of the Trail[8]

_By Clarence E. Mulford_

_Buck Peters, foreman of Bar-20 Ranch had many
cowboys; Pete Wilson, Red Connors, Billy Williams,
Johnny Nelson, and a goodly number more, but chief
among them was Hopalong Cassidy. Many interesting
stories are told about him in "Bar-20 Days" but
none of his thrilling experiences ever ended as
did the one recited in this most unusual story,
"The End of the Trail."_--THE EDITOR.

WHEN one finds on his ranch the carcasses of two cows on the same day,
and both are skinned, ther