A quick-witted policeman remembered that the only limestone road in Cloonalla was the road from Ballybor to Castleport, so that it was easy to tell in a house by an inspection of boots if any man of that household had been present at the ambush, and that night the fathers suffered for the sins of their sons, and the sons paid the full price of the gunmen’s crime. Like good soldiers, the gunmen carefully thought out their line of retreat before the ambush took place. They found that a broad river ran through the demesne parallel to and about 400 yards from the main road, that the nearest bridges above and below were five miles away, and that across the river ran a range of wild and desolate country. In a wood on the bank of the river they found fishing-boats, used for netting salmon during the summer-time, and before the ambush the leader sent two of his men to collect all these boats at a certain part of the river, and to remain there in readiness to take the remainder and their bicycles across. As soon as the ambush was over they collected their bicycles, crossed the river, and were soon riding through a little-known pass in the mountains on their way to carry on their devil’s work in a part of the country many miles removed from the scene of the Cloonalla ambush. VIII. MR BRIGGS’ ISLAND. Several years before the late war there lived in the suburbs of London a prosperous stockbroker, by name Benjamin Briggs, a lonely bachelor, an ardent fisherman, and a man of simple and kindly nature. Every year Mr Briggs spent his entire summer holidays fishing in Scotland or Wales, and it was not until after hearing a friend at his club recounting the wonderful fishing that he had had in Ireland that he turned his attention to that country. One afternoon, when passing through Euston Station, a famous poster of Connemara caught Mr Briggs’ eye, and the following summer he made a complete tour of that delightful country of mountains, moors, and rivers. So charmed was he with the scenery and the perfect manners of the peasants that he determined to see more of the country, and on a fine summer’s afternoon found himself in the little town of Ballybor, reputed to be one of the best fishing centres in Ireland. During a walk through the town before dinner, he happened to see a large notice in an auctioneer’s window, offering for sale, at what seemed to Mr Briggs a very low figure, a fishing-lodge on an island in the middle of a large lake, famous for its salmon, trout, and pike-fishing, and distant about six miles from the town of Ballybor. The notice also stated that the auctioneer would be glad to give full particulars, and that the lucky buyer could obtain immediate possession.