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So sharp and roving was his sight that he soon espied Col behind the trees solimpse of Bill, however, were fruitless And this appeared strange to Jean, for there were several good places on the right from which Bill could have commanded the front of Greaves's store and the whole west side

Col some shrubbery, and Jean see and listening, he felt that the tied Yet the shadows cast by the sun showed him that, no matter how tense he felt and how the

Suddenly Jean's ears rang with the vibrant shock of a rifle report He jerked up, strung and thrilling It came from in front of the store It was followed by revolver shots, heavy, booether to enule hoarse yell pealed out, somehow trenchant and triue, muffled the first one Then silence clapped down on the store and the open square

Jean was deadly certain that some of the Jorth clan would show the those sudden shots and that significant yell had caused hiht Jean's ears The suspense, then, grew unbearable It was not that he could not wait for an enemy to appear, but that he could not wait to learn what had happened Every moment that he stayed there, with hands like steel on his rifle, with eyes of a falcon, but added to a dreadful, dark certainty of disaster A rifle shot swiftly followed by revolver shots! What could, they mean? Revolver shots of different caliber, surely fired by different men! What could they mean? It was not these shots that accounted for Jean's dread, but the yell which had followed All his intelligence and all his nerve were not sufficient to fight down the feeling of cala to it, he left his post, and ran like a deer across the open, through the cabin yard, and around the edge of the slope to the road Here his caution brought hi into a run, he soon reached the back of Meeker's place and entered, to hurry forward to the cabin

Col, and in front of him crouched several of the lance, was apparently deserted Blue sat on the doorstep, lighting a cigarette Then on the moment Blaisdell strode to the door of the cabin Jean had never seen him look like that