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“Stand up!” commanded one of the men, and the victim struggled to his feet. In less time than it takes to tell it, the fellow was searched and hand-cuffed. “Run back there, Pyke, and see that the woman don’t take a crack at us with a shotgun. She’d do it in a minute.” As his companion darted back into the roadway, the speaker turned to his captive. “Where’s your gun?”

By this time Anderson Crow was on his feet. He was clutching something in his hand. He looked at it in stark astonishment. It was an automatic pistol. In raising himself from the ground his hand had fallen upon it.

“I don’t know,” said the captive sullenly. Then his gaze fell upon the gaunt figure of Anderson Crow. A frightful scowl transfigured his face. Mr. Crow involuntarily drew back a step and reversed the pistol in his hand, so that its muzzle was pointing at the enemy instead of at himself. Between imprecations the prisoner managed to convey the fact that he realized for the first time that it was a human being and not a log that had brought him to earth.

* * * * *

Mr. Crow found his voice and some of his wits at the same time.

“I’ll learn you not to go rampagin’ around these parts carryin’ concealed weapons, you good-fer-nothin’ scamp! I’ve got your gun, blast ye!” He turned triumphantly to the surprised secret-service man. “I took it away from him soon as I had him down, an’–“

“Holy mackerel!” gasped the operative. “Did–did you head him off and–and down him? You? Well, I’ll be hanged!”

“I sorter knowed he’d strike about here, tryin’ to make the woods up yonder, so I hustled down here to head him off while you fellers–“

“Never mind now,” broke in the other. “Tell it to me later. Come on, both of you. We’re not through yet.” He urged the burly captive through the hedge. Marshal Crow followed very close behind.

They found a terrified, excited group on the front porch–three sturdy females in nightgowns, all with their hands up! Below, revealed by the light streaming through the open door, stood a man covering them with a revolver. Fifteen or twenty minutes later Mr. Crow dug the shivering Eliphalet Loop out of the hay-mow and ordered him forthwith to join his family in the kitchen, where he would hear something to his advantage.

The happiest man in Bramble County was Eliphalet Loop when he finally grasped the truth. The prisoner turned out to be his wife’s first husband–he grasped that fact some little time before he realized that he wasn’t even her second husband, owing to certain fundamental principles in law–and a fugitive from justice. The man was an escaped convict, the leader of a gang of counterfeiters, and he was serving a term in one of the federal prisons when he succeeded in his break for liberty. For many months the United States Secret Service operatives had been combing the country for him, hot and cold on his trail, but always, until now, finding themselves baffled by the crafty rogue, who, according to the records, was one of the most dangerous, desperate criminals alive. Finally they got track of his wife, who had lived for a time in Hoboken, but it was only within the week that they succeeded in locating her as the wife of Eliphalet Loop. The remainder of the story is too simple to bother about.

“Of course, Mr. Loop,” said one of the secret-service men, “you can prosecute this woman for bigamy.”

Mr. Loop shook his head. “Not much! I won’t take no chance. She might prove that she wasn’t ever married to this feller, an’ then where would I be? No, sirree! You take her along an’ lock her up. She’s a dangerous character. An’ say, don’t make any mistake an’ fergit to take her mother an’ sister, too.”

* * * * *

The next evening Mr. Crow sat on the porch in front of Lamson’s store. His fellow-townsmen were paying up more promptly than he had expected. Practically three-fourths of the reward was in his coat pockets–all silver, but as heavy as lead.

“Yes, sir,” he was saying in a rather far-reaching voice, for the outer rim of the crowd was some distance away, “as I said before several times, I figgered he would do just what he did. I figgered that I’d have to outfigger him. He is one of the slickest individuals I have ever had anything to do with–an’ one of the most desperit. I–er–where was I at, Alf?… Oh, yes, I recollect. He was a powerful feller. Fer a second or two I thought maybe he’d get the best of me, being so much younger an’ havin’ a revolver besides. But I hung on like grim death, an’ finally–Thanks, Jim; I wasn’t expectin’ you to pay ‘fore the end of the month. Finally I got my favourite holt on him, an’ down he went. All this time I was tryin’ to git his revolver away from him. Just as I got it, the secret-service men came dashin’ up an’–What say, Deacon? Well, if the rest of the crowd ain’t tired o’ hearin’ the story, I don’t mind tellin’ it all over.”

Harry Squires, perched on the railing, assured him that the crowd wouldn’t mind in the least.

“The real beauty of the story Anderson,” he added dryly, “is that it has so much of the spice of life in it.”

“What’s that?”

“I mean variety.”