announcement,--

"Hurray--there's another--comin' up from below, but it a'n't Gilbert.
He's stuck full o' pistols, but he's a-foot, and you must git him a
horse. I tell you, he looks like a real buster!"

"Who can it be?" asked Barton.

"We'll see, in a minute," said the nearest volunteers, taking up their
muskets.

"There he is,--there he is!" cried Joe.

All eyes, turned towards the crossing of the roads, beheld, just
rounding the corner-house, fifty paces distant, a short,
broad-shouldered, determined figure, making directly for the tavern. His
face was red and freckled, his thin lips half-parted with a grin which
showed the flash of white teeth between them, and his eyes sparkled with
the light of a cold, fierce courage. He had a double-barrelled musket
on his shoulder, and there were four pistols in the tight leathern belt
about his waist.

Barton turned deadly pale as he beheld this man. An astonished silence
fell upon the group, but, the next moment, some voice exclaimed, in an
undertone, which, nevertheless, every one heard,--

"By the living Lord! Sandy Flash himself!"

There was a general confused movement, of which Alfred Barton took
advantage to partly cover his heavy body by one of the porch-pillars.