that might have been either disgust or relief he
stumbled to his feet and joined in the pursuit.

Down the road toward the south ran The Oskaloosa Kid with all the
fleetness of youth spurred on by terror. In five minutes he had so far
outdistanced his pursuers that The Sky Pilot leaped to the conclusion
that the quarry had left the road to hide in an adjoining field. The
resultant halt and search upon either side of the road delayed the chase
to a sufficient extent to award the fugitive a mile lead by the time the
band resumed the hunt along the main highway. The men were determined
to overhaul the youth not alone because of the loot upon his person but
through an abiding suspicion that he might indeed be what some of them
feared he was--an amateur detective--and there were at least two among
them who had reason to be especially fearful of any sort of detective
from Oakdale.

They no longer ran; but puffed arduously along the smooth road,
searching with troubled and angry eyes to right and left and ahead of
them as they went.

The Oskaloosa Kid puffed, too; but he puffed a mile away from the
searchers and he walked more rapidly than they, for his muscles were
younger and his wind unimpaired by dissipation. For a time he carried
the small automatic in his hand; but later, hearing no evidence of
pursuit, he returned it to the pocket in his coat where it had lain when
it had saved him from death beneath the blade of the degenerate Charlie.

For an hour he continued walking rapidly along the winding country road.
He was very tired; but he dared not pause to rest. Always behind him he
expected the sudden onslaught of the bearded, blear-eyed followers
of The Sky Pilot. Terror goaded him to supreme physical effort.
Recollection of the screaming man sinking to the earthen floor of the
hay barn haunted him. He was a murderer! He had slain a fellow man.
He winced and shuddered, increasing his gait until again he almost ran
--ran from the ghost pursuing him through the black night in greater
terror than he felt for the flesh and blood pursuers upon his heels.

And Nature drew upon her sinister forces to add to the fear which the
youth already felt. Black clouds obscured the moon blotting out the soft
kindliness of the greening fields and transforming the budding branches
of the trees to menacing and gloomy arms which appeared to hover with
clawlike talons above the dark and forbidding road. The wind soughed
with gloomy and i