A moment later—­it may have been an hour—­the moon sailed into a patch of unclouded sky and the hunted man saw that visible embodiment of Law lift an arm and point significantly toward and beyond him.  He understood.  Turning his back to his captor, he walked submissively away in the direction indicated, looking to neither the right nor the left; hardly daring to breathe, his head and back actually aching with a prophecy of buckshot.

Brower was as courageous a criminal as ever lived to be hanged; that was shown by the conditions of awful personal peril in which he had coolly killed his brother-in-law.  It is needless to relate them here; they came out at his trial, and the revelation of his calmness in confronting them came near to saving his neck.  But what would you have?—­when a brave man is beaten, he submits.

So they pursued their journey jailward along the old road through the woods.  Only once did Brower venture a turn of the head:  just once, when he was in deep shadow and he knew that the other was in moonlight, he looked backward.  His captor was Burton Duff, the jailer, as white as death and bearing upon his brow the livid mark of the iron bar.  Orrin Brower had no further curiosity.

Eventually they entered the town, which was all alight, but deserted; only the women and children remained, and they were off the streets.  Straight toward the jail the criminal held his way.  Straight up to the main entrance he walked, laid his hand upon the knob of the heavy iron door, pushed it open without command, entered and found himself in the presence of a half-dozen armed men.  Then he turned.  Nobody else entered.

On a table in the corridor lay the dead body of Burton Duff.

SOLDIER-FOLK

A MAN WITH TWO LIVES

Here is the queer story of David William Duck, related by himself.  Duck is an old man living in Aurora, Illinois, where he is universally respected.  He is commonly known, however, as “Dead Duck.”

“In the autumn of 1866 I was a private soldier of the Eighteenth Infantry.  My company was one of those stationed at Fort Phil Kearney, commanded by Colonel Carrington.  The country is more or less familiar with the history of that garrison, particularly with the slaughter by the Sioux of a detachment of eighty-one men and officers—­not one escaping—­through disobedience of orders by its commander, the brave but reckless Captain Fetterman.  When that occurred, I was trying to make my way with important dispatches to Fort C. F. Smith, on the Big Horn.  As the country swarmed with hostile Indians, I traveled by night and concealed myself as best I could before daybreak.  The better to do so, I went afoot, armed with a Henry rifle and carrying three days’ rations in my haversack.