ringleader of the Vigilantes,--and had left Red Pete, who had fired
it, covered by their rifles and at their mercy. For his hand had been
cramped by hard riding, and his eye distracted by their sudden onset,
and so the inevitable end had come. He submitted sullenly to his
captors; his companion fugitive and horse-thief gave up the protracted
struggle with a feeling not unlike relief. Even the hot and revengeful
victors were content. They had taken their men alive. At any
time during the long chase they could have brought them down by a
rifle-shot, but it would have been unsportsmanlike, and have ended
in a free fight, instead of an example. And, for the matter of that,
their doom was already sealed. Their end, by a rope and a tree,
although not sanctified by law, would have at least the deliberation
of justice. It was the tribute paid by the Vigilantes to that order
which they had themselves disregarded in the pursuit and capture. Yet
this strange logic of the frontier sufficed them, and gave a certain
dignity to the climax.

"Ef you've got anything to say to your folks, say it _now_, and say it
quick," said the ringleader.

Red Pete glanced around him. He had been run to earth at his own cabin
in the clearing, whence a few relations and friends, mostly women and
children, non-combatants, had outflowed, gazing vacantly at the twenty
Vigilantes who surrounded them. All were accustomed to scenes of
violence, blood-feud, chase, and hardship; it was only the suddenness
of the onset and its quick result that had surprised them. They looked
on with dazed curiosity and some disappointment; there had been no
fight to speak of--no spectacle! A boy, nephew of Red Pete, got upon
the rain-barrel to view the proceedings more comfortably; a tall,
handsome, lazy Kentucky girl, a visiting neighbor, leaned against the