five henchmen, were now well on their way to limbo,
and Mr. Crow was regaling his hearers with the story. During the first
recital (this being either the ninth or tenth), Alf Reesling had been
obliged to prompt him--a circumstance readily explainable when one stops
to consider the effect of the murderous blow Mr. Crow had received.

"'Course," said Anderson, "they _did_ fool me at first. But I wasn't
long gittin' onto 'em. I used to sneak up there and investigate ever'
now an' ag'in. Finally I got onto the fact that they was German spies--I
got positive proof of it. I can't tell you just what it is, 'cause it's
government business. Then I finds out they got a wireless plant all in
order, an' ready to relay messages to the coast o' Maine, from some'eres
out west. So today, I goes over to Justice Robb's and gits a warrant for
intoxication. That was to make it legal fer me to bust into their shanty
if necessary. Course, the drunk charge was only a blind, as I told the
U. S. marshal. I went right straight to that underground den o' their'n,
an' afore they knowed what was up, I leaped down on 'em. Fust thing I
done was to put the big and dangerous one horse de combat. He was the
one I was worried about. I knocked him flat an' then went after t'other
one. He let on like he was surrenderin'. He fooled me, I admit--'cause I
don't know anything 'bout wireless machinery. All of a sudden he give me
a wireless shock--out o' nowhere, you might say--an' well, by cracky, I
thought it was all over. 'Course, I realize now it was foolish o' me to
try to go up there an' take them two desperadoes single-handed, but
I--What's that, Bud?"

"Mrs. Crow sent me to tell you if you didn't come home to supper this
minute, you wouldn't git any," called out a boy from the outskirts of
the crowd.

"That's the second wireless shock you've had today, Anderson," said
Harry Squires, drily, and slowly closed one eye.

THE BEST MAN WINS!

ANDERSON CROW MEETS HIS WATERLOO AND HIS MARNE

For sixteen consecutive years Anderson Crow had been the Marshal of
Tinkletown. A hiatus of two years separated this period of service from
another which, according to persons of apparently infallible memory, ran
through an unbroken stretch of twenty-two years. Uncle Gid Luce stoutly
maintained--and with some authority--that anybody who said twenty-two
years was either mistaken or lying. He knew for a positive fact that it
was only twenty-one for the simple rea