leaped from the door with a yell. The bonnet was a signal to the
beleaguered Lewallens. The rear door of the courthouse had been
quietly opened, and the prisoners were out in a body and
scrambling over the fence before the pickets could give an alarm.
The sudden yells, the crack of Winchesters, startled even the
revellers and all who could, headed by Rome and Steve Marcum,
sprang into the square, and started in pursuit. But the Lewallens
had got far ahead, and were running in zigzag lines to dodge the
balls flying after them. Half-way to the woods was a gully of red
clay, and into this the fleetest leaped, and turned instantly to cover
their comrades. The Winchesters began to rattle from the woods,
and the bullets came like rain from everywhere.

"T-h-up! T-h-up! T-h-up! " there were three of them-the peculiar
soft, dull messages of hot lead to living flesh. A Stetson went
down; another stumbled; Rufe Stetson, climbing the fence, caught
at his breast with an oath, and fell back. Rome and Steve dropped
for safety to the ground. Every other Stetson turned in a panic, and
every Lewallen in the gully leaped from it, and ran under the
Lewallen fire for shelter in the woods. The escape was over.

"That was a purty neat trick," said Steve, wiping a red streak from
his cheek. " Nex' time she tries that, she'll git herself into trouble."

At nightfall the wounded leader and the dead one were carried up
the mountain, each to his home; and there was mourning far into
the night on one bank of the Cumberland, and, serious though Rufe
Stetson's wound was, exultation on the other. But in it Rome could
take but little part. There had been no fault to find with him in the
fight. But a reaction had set in when he saw the girl flash in the