Four or five revolvers puffed off to the left. A guard dropped his gun, shaking his hand in agony. The left third of the soldiers at a command raised their rifles, and blazed away at the infuriated welter of retreating humanity. A madhouse of screams, men and women running, two bodies settling onto the stained July grass.... Another volley, this toward the right. "Take that, you----" screamed a deputy, as the startled face at a window was met by the blaze of a rifle. The woman hung swaying over the ledge; choking horribly, she trembled further and further out, dropped hideously upon the ground. At the storehouse now. "Hey, you, get out of that," Huggins commanded the strikers' distributors. "This is our----" The sight of the rifles settled the matter. The two dead guards were stretched on the floor, the wounded were roughly bandaged. Huggins phoned the facts to the militia headquarters on the mountain. "Said for us to wait here," he explained to the army lieutenant in charge. "It 'ud be suicide, trying to get out. For all we know, all them houses is full of strikers. There'll be two companies here inside of an hour. By God, we'll do for 'em this time!" His tone shook in fierce rapture--the man hunt was on! The main bulk of the rifles covered the big open field in front; small parties watched toward west, south and north, to warn if any activity showed in the houses fifty feet away. There was no water; the wounded cursed continually for it. Huggins sent a party, well protected, over to the well, seventy feet away, to bring back two bucketfuls. One of the detail was shot in the collar bone, but managed to make his way back with the bearers of the precious drink. There was a shouting from in front. "Hey," came a voice, waving a white towel raised high on a clothes-pole. "Can we talk with your man in charge?" It was Edward McGuire, the father of little hump-backed Frank, who had been arrested, but had slipped away in the disorderly retreat to the store. He had been selected as one of the older, more law-abiding of the miners, to bring the flag of truce. "What d'ye want?" Huggins demanded belligerently. "Ain't no use to talk; I got a regiment comin' in half an hour, will clean up this whole damned nest of rats." "Can I come closer?" called McGuire. There was no answer. He came over to where the lieutenant of the guard stood, clutching the pole with its white symbol high above his head. "Well?" "Can we pick up those bodies out on the field? You can get any of your men there. We'll carry this flag, sir--one of 'em 's my son, I think." The deputy beside Huggins stepped two feet forward. His revolver reversed, he brought it down with all his force on the undefended grizzled head. McGuire dropped in a heap.