f Prouty.

It was not a night one would select for traveling on horseback, unless
his business was urgent. However, the man's seemed to be of this nature,
for he rode behind a large signboard which advertised the wares of the
Prouty Emporium, dismounted, tied his horse to the prop that held the
signboard upright, and with a show of haste took a coil of rope from his
saddlehorn, an axe--the head of which was wrapped in gunny sacking--and
a gun that swung in loops of saddle thongs at an angle to fit
comfortably in the bend of the rider's knee.

He did not follow the road, but took a shorter cut straight down the
steep side of the bench to the nearest alley, through which he ran as
noiselessly as a coyote. He ran until he came to Main Street, which the
alley bisected. In the shade of the Security State Bank he peered around
the corner and listened. The street was deserted, not even a dog or
prowling cat was visible the entire length of it.

The man crossed it hurriedly, looking up and down and over his shoulder
furtively, like some cautious animal which fears itself followed. In the
protection of the alley he ran again until he came to Mormon Joe's
tar-paper shack setting square and ugly in the middle of the lot--an
eyesore to the neighbors.

The door was locked, but it was the work of a second to tear off the
axe-head's covering and pry it open. He stepped inside and closed the
door quietly. Lighting the candle he took from his pocket, with his hand
he shielded the flame from the one window, and looked about with a
glance that took in every detail of the shack's arrangement.

A single iron bedstead extended into the room and a soogan and two
blankets, thin and ragged from service, were heaped in the middle. There
was no pillow, and a hard cotton pad constituted the mattress. An empty
whiskey bottle stood by the head of the bed.

A small pine table that at most might have cost a couple of dollars set
against the wall by the window. The starch box that served as a chair
was shoved under the table, and another box in the corner did duty as a
washstand. There was a cake of soap and a tin basin upon the latter and
a grimy hand towel hung close by from a spike driven into the unplaned
boards. Facing the door was a sheet-iron camp stove, rusty and
overflowing with ashes. The rickety, ill-fitting pipe was secured with
the inevitable baling wire.

After his swift survey, the man stepped to the washstand and let a few
drops