done the work of the night before suddenly became
heroes. Not all of us had come together here, however. Tell was keeping
store up at the "Last Chance," and Jim was seeing to the forge fire,
while the father of each boy sauntered about in the tavern yard.

"You won't tell anybody about father," Tell pleaded before he left us.
"He never planned it, indeed he didn't. It was old man Dodd and Yeager
and them other strangers."

I can picture now the Reverend Mr. Dodd, piously serious, sitting on the
tavern veranda at that moment, a disinterested listener to what lay
below his spiritual plane of life. Just above his temple was a deep
bruise, and his right hand was bound with a white bandage. Five years
later, one dark September night, by the dry bed of the Arickaree Creek
in Colorado, I heard the story of that bandage and that bruise.

"And you'll be sure to keep still about my dad, too, won't you?" Jim
Conlow urged. "He's bad, but--" as if he could find no other excuse, he
added grinning, "I don't believe he's right bright; and Tell and me done
our best anyhow."

Their best! These two had braved the worst of foes, with those of their
own flesh and blood against them. We would keep their secret fast
enough, nor should anyone know from the boys who of our own townspeople
were in the plot. I believe now that Conlow would have killed Jim had he
suspected the boy's part in that night's work. I have never broken faith
with Jim, although Heaven knows I have had cause enough to wish never to
hear the name of Conlow again.

One more boy was not in our line, O'mie, still missing from the ranks,
and now my heart was heavy. Everybody else seemed to forget him in the
excitement, however, and I hoped all was well.

On the veranda a group was crowding about Father Le Claire, listening to
what he had to say. Nobody tried to do business in our town that day.
Men and women and children stood about in groups, glad to be alive and
to know that their homes were safe. It was a sight one may not see
twice in a lifetime. And the thrill within me, that I had helped a
little toward this safety, brought a pleasure unlike any other joy I
have ever known.

"Where's Aunt Candace?" I asked Dollie Gentry, who had grasped my arm as
if she would ring it from my shoulder.

"Hadn't you heard?" Dollie's eyes filled with tears. "Judson's baby died
this mornin'. Judson he can't get across Fingal's Creek or some of the
draws, to get home, and the fright