those men are, Anderson Crow."

"You couldn't. They're perfect strangers. If they wasn't, how'd they
happen to miss the road?"

"They are the very men I'm looking for," said she. "They're the
robbers,--and the men who set fire to Smock's warehouse, I'll bet
you--and everything else!"

"Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!"

An officer rushed up.

"Turn that flivver around in the middle of the road and jump out quick.
That will stop them. Let 'em smash it up if necessary. It isn't worth
more than ten dollars."

While a half-dozen men were dragging the car into position as a
barricade, Mrs. Crow exclaimed to her husband:

"That old skinflint! He said it was cheap at fifty dollars. Thank
goodness, I--"

But Anderson was hustling her out of the car. In the distance the
headlights of the bandits' car burst into view as it swung around a bend
in the road.

Soldiers everywhere! They seemed to have sprung out of the ground. On
came the big car, thundering into the trap. Bugle-calls sounded; a
couple of guns blazed into the air as the car flew past the outposts,
lights flared suddenly in the path of bewildered occupants, and loud
imperative commands rang out on the air.

Into the gantlet of guns the big car rushed. The man at the wheel bent
low and took the reckless chance of getting through.

Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the dauntless abandoned
flivver. He jerked frantically at the brakes.

[Illustration: _Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the
dauntless, abandoned flivver_]

"Halt!" shouted Anderson Crow from the top of the roadside bank.
"Surrender in the name of the Law!"

He spoke just in time.

Crash! They halted!

Deacon Rank's little car died a glorious, spectacular death. (Harry
Squires, in his account, placed it all alone in the list of
"unidentified dead.")

Three minutes after the collision, brawny soldiers were bending over the
stretched-out figures of five unconscious men.

Mr. and Mrs. Crow stood on the edge of the group, awe-struck and silent.

"They're coming around, all right," said some one at Anderson's elbow.
"He was slowing down when they struck. But there's no hope for the poor
old flivver."

Anderson found his voice--a quavering, uncertain voice--and exclaimed:

"Stand aside, men! I am the marshal of Tinkletown, an' them scoundrels
are my prisoners."

His progress was barred by a couple of soldiers. An officer approached.

"Easy, Mr. Marshal--easy, now. Th