“This is the spot he was standing,” remarked Wright, “the exact spot. I guess I’ll just look and see if there is any trail. The ground is soft about here and should show up pretty clear.” He descended from the waggon and carefully examined the side of the road, but could see nothing. There was a large stump with a broken branch sticking out which attracted his attention, and he walked around it a couple of times, surveying it critically in the uncertain light. “Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, after the third inspection. “I didn’t think I could have been mistaken.” Then he climbed back into the waggon, and said, “Gee-up!” “Did you fin’ any tracks o’ robbers?” asked his companion anxiously. “No,” replied Brother Wright, “no tracks of robbers, but I lighted on the trail of a doggauned fool. Guess we’ll not say much about the attack made on our waggon, at Little Cotton Wood Creek.” “I won’t mention it at all,” remarked Aunt Ruby, “’cause it might frighten the folks up to Perfection City an’ make ’em uneasy ’bout coming to Union Mills.” Brother Wright only chuckled in reply, possibly because his whole attention was required at this juncture to get his horses and waggon safely through the water, for it was certainly very dark in that bottom-land. Once the creek was crossed and the high prairie reached, it became easy enough to see by the light of the new moon and the stars, and the pair reached Perfection City in safety, although very late. Brother Wright was very eager to unravel the mystery of that horseman at the ford on Little Cotton Wood Creek, so he made a private expedition thither on horseback as soon as he could frame an excuse for a morning’s absence. He went to the place whence he had first seen the alarming stranger, half closed his sharp grey eyes, and looked. “Well, I swan!” he remarked, as this expression seemed somehow to relieve his feelings. By daylight there was nothing suspicious to be seen, but the old stump with the broken branch sticking out from it straight towards the spectator. Brother Wright surveyed this stump critically and came to the conclusion that with the help of darkness, a slight mist, a new moon, and a nervous companion, the old stump might take on an alarming aspect. He rode up to the stump, got off his horse, and examined it. “I should like to know that I hit him plumb with both bullets anyhow,” remarked he, with a grin most unbecoming to a Perfection City non-resistant. He had hit “him” plumb, but so had other people, and the amazed Brother Wright counted no less than seventeen bullet holes, both old and new, in the body of that long suffering stump.