I capture them desperadoes." He was moving toward the front gate. Caroline's paraphrase pursued him and left a sting:

"What is home without a father!"

Followed now a lengthy and at times acrimonious argument as to the further operations of the marshal's posse.

"We're losing valuable time," protested Harry Squires at the end of a half-hour's fertile discussion. Fertile is here employed instead of futile, for never was there a more extensive crop of ideas raised by human agency.

"We can't do anything till we find out which way the derned rascals went, can we?" said Mr. Crow bitingly. "We got to find somebody that seen 'em start off in that automobile. We—"

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Harry. "We've got to split up into parties and follow every road out of Tinkletown."

"How in thunder do you expect me to lead five or six different posses?" demanded Anderson.

"Yes, an' what in thunder would we do if we caught up with 'em unexpected-like if we didn't have Anderson with us?" said Alf Reesling, loyal to the core. "In the first place, we wouldn't have any legal right to capture 'em, and in the second place we couldn't do it anyhow."

By this time there were a dozen shotguns on the scene, to say nothing of a most impressive collection of antiquated revolvers, "Flobert" rifles, Civil War muskets and baseball bats.

"I move we move," was the laconic but excellent speech of Mr. Henry Plumb. He already had his forefinger on the trigger of his "single-barrel."

"Second the motion," cried out Ed Higgins loudly.

"I thought I told you to go an' 'tend to that fire, Ed Higgins," said Anderson, in some surprise.

An extremely noisy dog-fight put an end to the discussion for the time being, and it was too late to renew it after Situate Jones' mongrel Pete had finished with Otto Schultz's dachshund Bismarck. So vociferous was the chorus put up by the other dogs that no one noticed the approach of an automobile, coming down the Boggs City pike. The car passed at full speed. Three dogs failed to get out of the way in time, and as a result, the list of casualties was increased to four, including Ed Higgins' previously mentioned black and tan.

The speeding car, a big one loaded with men, was a hundred yards away and going like the wind before the startled group regained its senses.

"There they go!" yelled Harry Squires.

"Exceedin' the speed limit, dog-gone 'em!" roared Anderson. "They ought to be locked up fer ten days an' fined—"

"Come on, men!" shouted Harry. "After 'em! That's the gang! They've been headed off at Boggs City—or something like that."

"Did anybody ketch the number of that car?" shouted Anderson. "I c'n trace 'em by their license number if—"

The rest of the speech was lost in the rush to enter the waiting automobiles, and the shouting that ensued. Then followed a period of frantic cranking, after which came the hasty backing and turning of cars, the tooting of horns and the panic of gears.

Loaded to the "gunnels," the half-dozen machines finally got under way, and off they went into the night, chortling with an excitement all their own.

A lone figure remained standing in front of Anderson Crow's gate—a tall, lank figure without coat or hat, one suspender supporting a pair of blue trousers, the other hanging limp and useless. He wore a red undershirt and carried in his left hand the trumpet of a fire-fighting chieftain.

"Well, I'll be dog-goned!" issued from his lips as the last of the cars rattled away. Then he started off bravely on foot in the wake of the noisy cavalcade. "Now, all of 'em are breakin' the speed laws; an' it's goin' to cost 'em somethin', consarn 'em, when I yank 'em up 'fore Justice Robb tomorrow, sure as my name's Anderson Crow."

Presently he heard a car approaching from behind. It was very dark in the outskirts of the town, and the lonely highway that reached down into the valley was a thing of the imagination rather than of the vision. Profiting by the catastrophes that attended the passing of the big touring-car Anderson hastily leaped to the side of the road. A couple of small headlights veered around a curve in the road and came down the slight grade, followed naturally and somewhat haltingly by an automobile whose timorous brakes were half set. There was a single occupant.

Anderson levelled his trumpet at the driver and shouted:

"Halt!"

"Oh-h!" came in a shrill, agitated voice from the car, but the machine gave no sign of halting.

"Hey! Halt, I say!"

"I—I don't know how!" moaned the voice. "How do you stop it?"

"Good gracious sakes alive! Is—is it you, Eva?"

"Oh, Anderson! Thank goodness! I thought you was a highwayman. Oh, dear—oh, dear! Ain't there any way to stop this thing?"

"Shut off the power, an' it'll stop when you start up the grade."

Anderson was trotting along behind, tugging at one of the mud-guards.

"How do you shut it off?"

"The same way you turned it on."

"Goodness, what a fool way to do things!"

The little car came to a stop on the rise of the grade, and Anderson side-stepped just in time to avoid being bumped into as it started back again, released.

"It's Deacon Rank's car," explained Mrs. Crow in response to a series of bewildered, rapid-fire questions from her husband. "He offered to sell it to me for fifty dollars, and I've been learnin' how to run it for two whole days—out in Peters' Mill lane."

"How does it happen I never knowed anything about this, Eva?" demanded he, regaining in some measure his tone of authority.

"I wanted to surprise you."

"Well, by gosh, you have!"

"Deacon Rank's been giving me lessons every afternoon. I know how to start it and steer it, goin' slow-like—but of course I've got a lot to learn."

"Well, you just turn that car around an' skedaddle for home, Eva Crow," was his command. "What business have you got runnin' around the country like this in the dead o' night, all alone—"

"Ain't I the Marshal of Tinkletown?" she broke in crossly. "What right have all you men to be going off without me in this—"

"The only official thing you've done, madam, since you got to be marshal, was to resign while you was in bed not more'n an hour ago. I accepted your resignation, so now you go home as quick as that blamed old rattletrap will take you."

"Besides, I saw the ornery fools go off an' leave you behind, Anderson, and that made me mad. I run over to Deacon Rank's and got the car. Now, you hop right in, and I'll take you wherever you want to go. Get in, I say. I hereby officially withdraw my resignation. I'm still marshal of this town, and if you don't do as I tell you, I'll discharge you as deputy."

So Anderson got up beside her and pulled desperately at his chin-whiskers, no doubt to assist the words that were struggling to escape from his compressed lips.

After considerable back-firing, the decrepit machine began to climb the grade. Presently Mr. Crow found his voice.

"Didn't I tell you to turn around, Eva?"

"Don't talk to me when I'm driving," said she, gripping the wheel tightly with the fingers of death.

"You turn the car around immediately, woman. I'm your husband, an' I order you to do as I tell ye!"

"I'll turn it around when I get good and ready," said she in a strained voice. "Can't you see there ain't room enough to turn around in this road?"

"Well, it don't get any wider."

"Besides, I don't know how to turn it around," she confessed.

"Why, you just back her, same as anybody else does, an' then reverse her, an'—"

"You old goose, how can I back her when she keeps on going for'ard?"

Anderson was silent for a moment.

"Well, if I may be so bold as to ask, madam, where are you going?" he asked, with deep sarcasm in his voice.

"You leave it to me, Anderson Crow. I know what I am doing."

They went on for about a quarter of a mile before she spoke