It was Flournoy’s pistol which had roused the Skull to his danger. But the Skull was not disturbed. Shifting his bag of money so that he carried it on his left arm as a woman carries a bundle, he slipped his automatic from his pocket. Crouching low in the darkness and walking with the noiseless tread of a cat within ten feet of Flournoy, he passed unobserved by the sheriff out of the lot into the alley and on to the front of the store. The bullets zipped around him as he ran out of the alley toward the middle of the street, but the Skull’s first shot was upward at the electric street light which went out, leaving him sheltered by almost total darkness. Running down the alley, Flournoy fired into that circle of darkness at a venture. The answer of the Skull’s gun was instantaneous. The sheriff felt a jar which almost paralyzed his right arm. Making an investigation he uttered a low exclamation of wonder and admiration: The Skull’s bullet had struck and destroyed the sheriff’s weapon. In the mean time the rest of the fox-hunters had been spreading out, trailing along the street in front of the store. In a moment half a dozen pistols began to shoot and the Skull was engaged in the battle of his life. In the Louisiana villages promiscuous shooting upon the street at night is a fire-alarm. Roused by such shooting, men quickly slip on their clothes, seize their own firearms, and run down the street toward the first alarm, firing into the air as they run, thus rousing the whole town. All over Tickfall, men heard what they thought was a fire-signal from the business section of the village. Fearful of losing their stores and offices, they ran toward the fray, shouting and shooting, until Tickfall sounded like a battle with a thousand men engaged. “The beggars are coming to town,” Slatey the Skull quoted with a skinny smile. “I’ll wait until the mob arrives, then slip through the crowd in the dark.” But alas, the Skull was not acquainted with Sheriff Flournoy. Adopting the old Indian trick of lying flat on the ground, thus throwing the object he was approaching against the sky so that he could see it, the sheriff with bones like an ox and a mouth as grim and cruel as a bear-trap was slowly crawling toward the sardonic creature of skin and bones, as frail and delicate as a girl, who sat sedately beside the stolen money-bag. Suddenly Slatey screamed like a wildcat and sprang to his feet. Wrestling with his feeble strength, shooting wildly, biting, clawing, he struggled in the bear-like hug of the giant sheriff. Then something snapped inside the Skull’s body and with a frightened “Ah!” he sank limply into the hands of his captor. At that moment the street was filled with armed men, white and black, looking for the conflagration. Explanations flew from lip to lip. Some one entered the Gaitskill store and turned on the lights. Then Sheriff Flournoy entered carrying Slatey the Skull. “Is he dead?” the crowd asked in one breath.