nt gate. Caroline's paraphrase pursued him and
left a sting:

"What is home without a father!"

Followed now a lengthy and at times acrimonious argument as to the
further operations of the marshal's posse.

"We're losing valuable time," protested Harry Squires at the end of a
half-hour's fertile discussion. _Fertile_ is here employed instead of
_futile_, for never was there a more extensive crop of ideas raised by
human agency.

"We can't do anything till we find out which way the derned rascals
went, can we?" said Mr. Crow bitingly. "We got to find somebody that
seen 'em start off in that automobile. We--"

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Harry. "We've got to split up into parties
and follow every road out of Tinkletown."

"How in thunder do you expect me to lead five or six different posses?"
demanded Anderson.

"Yes, an' what in thunder would we do if we caught up with 'em
unexpected-like if we didn't have Anderson with us?" said Alf Reesling,
loyal to the core. "In the first place, we wouldn't have any legal right
to capture 'em, and in the second place we couldn't do it anyhow."

By this time there were a dozen shotguns on the scene, to say nothing of
a most impressive collection of antiquated revolvers, "Flobert" rifles,
Civil War muskets and baseball bats.

"I move we move," was the laconic but excellent speech of Mr. Henry
Plumb. He already had his forefinger on the trigger of his
"single-barrel."

"Second the motion," cried out Ed Higgins loudly.

"I thought I told you to go an' 'tend to that fire, Ed Higgins," said
Anderson, in some surprise.

An extremely noisy dog-fight put an end to the discussion for the time
being, and it was too late to renew it after Situate Jones' mongrel Pete
had finished with Otto Schultz's dachshund Bismarck. So vociferous was
the chorus put up by the other dogs that no one noticed the approach of
an automobile, coming down the Boggs City pike. The car passed at full
speed. Three dogs failed to get out of the way in time, and as a result,
the list of casualties was increased to four, including Ed Higgins'
previously mentioned black and tan.

The speeding car, a big one loaded with men, was a hundred yards away
and going like the wind before the startled group regained its senses.

"There they go!" yelled Harry Squires.

"Exceedin' the speed limit, dog-gone 'em!" roared Anderson. "They ought
to be locked up fer ten days an' fined--"

"Come on, men!" shouted Harry. "A