d well-nigh his own undoing, also.
Crack! spat the Luger again from the window. His hat whirled from his
head, but he kept his presence of mind. It was not the first time by
many that Yorke had been under fire. Ducking down on the instant, he
moved swiftly three paces to his right, and then, finger on trigger, he
suddenly jerked upright and sent two more shots crashing through the
aperture.

"Mark-er!" he called out mockingly. "Signal a miss, mark-er! Ding-dong!
You'll get tired of it before we do, Gully! You'd better give up the
ghost, man!"

His grim sarcasm failing to draw further fire from his desperate
opponent, the senior constable reloaded wearily and settled down to what
promised to be a long, danger-fraught vigil.

CHAPTER XIV

He "went out," poor Gus, at the break o' day---
Oh!--his kindly ways, and his cheery face!
But . . . the Lord gave, and hath taken away,
Hark! sounds "The Last Post," Requiescat in Pace!
"THE LAST POST"

Slowly the night dragged through for the two grim, haggard sentinels.
Thrice during their vigil had their desperate quarry exercised his
marksmanship upon them with his deadly Luger. Seemingly only by a
miracle did they escape each time. The sergeant had his hat perforated
in similar fashion to his companions. Yorke had a shoulder-strap torn
from his stable-jacket. Adroitly shifting their positions each time he
fired, they greeted his shots with such withering blasts of carbine fire
that they finally silenced their enemy's battery. Throughout he had
remained as mute as a trapped wolf. Only an occasional cough indicated
that so far, apparently, he was unharmed and, like them, still grimly on
the alert.

Relief came to the two besiegers with the first streaks of dawn. Dr.
Cox, with almost superhuman efforts, had somehow managed to reach Lanky
Jones and the buckboard with the wounded Redmond. Swiftly conveying the
latter back to the detachment, the physician had immediately got in touch
with the night-operator at the station, and also MacDavid.

And now, guided by that old pioneer, Inspector Kilbride arrived upon the
scene with an armed party from the Post. They had been rushed up by a
special train, which had been flagged by MacDavid at the nearest
objective point to Gully's ranch.

Swiftly and warily they skirmished towards their objective. Half of the
party, under a sergeant, crept along below the shelteri