He raised his rifle to his shoulder. It was a hard shot, one which most men would have deemed impossible, but there was a star in line. He fired. The bridge crashed down, a ruin, the severed rope now dangling limply, freed of the burden it had held for many years. "She's safe!" said he. For another instant he stood studying the spluttering fuse. From what he had seen at the railroad workings he knew it was destined to burn long enough so that many workmen could get out of danger before the spark reached the strong explosive in the cartridge. He need not hurry. "In three minutes it'll all be ended," he reflected. "He's as helpless as a baby; he can't strike back, now; it's no more nor he deserves. I'm goin'." He straightened up and would have hurried off, had not, at just that moment, the sweet voice of the girl he loved rung through the brooding, fragrant evening air, in song. It brought him to himself, it filled him with a horrified realization of the foulness of the deed which he was contemplating. "No--no!" said he. "Why, I'd be the coward that he called me!" He hurried to the fuse and, with trembling eagerness, stamped out the spark which, now, was creeping close indeed to that point where it would have blossomed into the terrifying flower of death. "I'll fight him ag'in," he said; and then, addressing the now extinguished fuse, the harmless cartridge of explosive: "You lie thar and prove ter him I ain't no coward!" He hurried down the trail. Holton, vastly disappointed, crept out from his hiding place. "The fool!" he muttered. "Oh, the fool! That thar little spark would a' put me even an' made me safe fer life! An' it war lighted--it war lighted!" His regret was keen. He raged there like a madman robbed of his intended prey. Then, suddenly: "But--who'll believe him when he says he put it out? I'll--do it!" He hastily took out a match, struck it, relighted the dead fuse. "It'll be his work, not mine!" he thought, exultantly, as he paused to see that the fuse would surely burn. As he turned to hasten from the spot he caught a glimpse of something white across the gully at the thresh-hold of the girl's cabin. For a second this was terrifying, but he quickly regained poise. The bridge was gone. She could not reach the side of the endangered man to save him, she could not reach the mainland to pursue him and discover his identity. He fled.