down; one screamed; the other struggled to his feet, and limped
away with an empty saddle. One pf the fallen men sprang into
safety behind a house, and one lay still, with his arms stretched out
and his face in the dust.

From behind barn, house, and fence the Lewallens gave back a
scattering fire; but the Stetsons crept closer, and were plainly in
greater numbers. Old Jasper was being surrounded, and he
mounted again, and all, followed by a chorus of bullets and
triumphant yells, fled for a wooded slope in the rear of the
court-house. A dozen Lewallens were prisoners, and must give up
or starve. There was savage joy in the Stetson crowd, and
many-footed rumor went all ways that night.

Despite sickness and Rome's strict order, Isom had ridden down to
the mill. Standing in the doorway, he and old Gabe saw up the
river, where the water broke into foam over the ford, a riderless
gray horse plunging across. Later it neighed at a gate under Wolf's
Head, and Martha Lewallen ran out to meet it. Across under
Thunderstruck Knob that night the old Stetson mother listened to
Isom's story of the fight with ghastly joy in her death-marked face.

XI

ALL night the court-house was guarded and on guard. At one
corner of the square Rufe Stetson, with a few men, sat on watch in
old Sam Day's cabin-the fortress of the town, built for such a
purpose, and used for it many times before. The prisoners, too,
were alert, and no Stetson ventured into the open square, for the
moon was high; an exposure anywhere was noted instantly by the