e bullet in the melee that might end his folly and relieve him
of responsibility. Shut up in a barn with a furious woman, in a lawless
defence of questionable rights--with the added consciousness that an
equally questionable passion had drawn him into it, and that SHE knew
it--death seemed to offer the only escape from the explanation he could
never give. If another sting could have been added it was the absurd
conviction that Cressy would not appreciate his sacrifice, but was
perhaps even at that moment calmly congratulating herself on the
felicitousness of the complication in which she had left him.

Suddenly he heard a shout and the tramping of horse. The sides of the
loft were scantily boarded to allow the extension of the pent-up grain,
and between the interstices Ford, without being himself seen, had an
uninterrupted view of the plain between him and the line of willows.
As he gazed, five men hurriedly issued from the extreme left and ran
towards the barn. McKinstry and his followers simultaneously broke from
the same covert further to the right and galloped forward to intercept
them. But although mounted, the greater distance they had to traverse
brought them to the rear of the building only as the Harrison party came
to a sudden halt before the closed and barricaded doors of the usually
defenceless barn. The discomfiture of the latter was greeted by a
derisive shout from the McKinstry party--albeit, equally astonished. But
in that brief moment Ford recognized in the leader of the Harrisons the
well-known figure of the Sheriff of Tuolumne. It needed only this to cap
the climax of the fatality that seemed to pursue him. He was no longer a
lawless opposer of equally lawless forces, but he was actually resisting
the law itself. He understood the situation now. It was some idiotic
blunder of Uncle Ben's that had precipitated this attack.

The belligerents had already cocked their weapons, although the barn
was still a rampart between the parties. But an adroit flanker of
McKinstry's, creeping through the tall mustard, managed to take up an
enfilading position as the Harrisons advanced to break in the door. A
threatening shout from the ambuscaded partisans caused them to hurriedly
fall back towards the rear of the barn. There was a pause, and then
began the usual Homeric chaff,--with this Western difference that it was
cunningly intended to draw the other's fire.

"Why don't you blaze away at the door, you ---- ----!