He once more recalled to mind the conversation that his sweetheart had overheard and repeated to him, which had taken place between his uncle and some unknown man upon the public highway. Could this mysterious person have been Jade Beddow, and had they arranged it between them to have him sent forward so that he might be shot, or taken prisoner? This was evidently the trap that had been so adroitly set, and into which he was now riding, though not without protest. Won to this belief, he still rode onward unflinchingly toward the toll-house now looming up before him like a ghostly warning, and dimly outlined against the cold gray midnight sky. Nature herself seemed steeped in profound slumber at this wan, late hour, and neither life nor movement was visible about the place. The solitary horseman appeared to be the only living object in all that cheerless, dimly-defined landscape. There was no sign of danger on any hand, no suspicious movement of a lurking enemy. The deep silence of night's midhour brooded over the quiet scene, and its peace fell heavily upon it like the mantle of darkness round about. The lone rider began to look about him with growing confidence. It was all so quiet, so still, so filled with the hush of midnight--surely the monition he had received that the gate would be guarded must have been built on mere rumor without the foundation of fact. When he came to the gate, he found the pole up, as it was wont to be at so late an hour of the night, and after pausing a brief moment, thinking tenderly of one within the darkened toll-house, he passed from under the raised pole, and rode a short distance along the road. Once again he paused, and looked back, and listened. No sight or sound betrayed the presence of guard or officer. It must be that the posse had failed to materialize, believing the rumor of an impending attack mere idle talk. With a feeling of relief the horseman raised a whistle to his lips and blew a sharp call as a signal that the raiders might advance. In quick response the clatter of many hoofs came beating down the road in rhythmic measure. Suddenly--breaking harshly into the musical ring of the hurrying hoof-beats--rang the discordant note of a shot from out the darkness, and quick upon it came another, while the advance rider, startled and surprised by its unexpectedness, heard the bullet singing keenly past his ear. An answering fire from the oncoming raiders, shooting at random, seeking an unseen and hidden foe, awoke the echoes, and speedily a volley of shots from both raiders and guards filled the quiet night with tumultuous sounds.