The guards hastily scrambled over the rock fence after a parting volley had been sent after the last retreating horseman, who had tarried a brief while in his retreat, and each guard was eager to find an answer to the leader's question. "One man fell or dropped from his horse, I'll swear to that," the sheriff made reply, looking along the gloom of the road with expectant eyes. "We must surely have wounded one of them. It cannot have been a total loss of lead." "No, for I'm hit," a voice made the doleful assertion out of the darkness farther along the fence line. "Hello! Scott! Is that you? Are you much hurt?" "Shot in the shoulder." "Is that so?" asked the sheriff concernedly. "I'll look after your case at once. Anybody else hurt?" "I believe a bullet went through my hat and grazed my skull"--this a second voice tinged with grave anxiety. "If so, it probably flattened the bullet," was the unfeeling remark of a companion. The girl from the toll-house appeared just then on the platform--a sudden apparition, startled of face, and with a hand that shook perceptibly as she carried an old tin lantern. "Is anybody hurt?" she anxiously inquired. "A wound in the shoulder of one of our men; nothing serious, I hope," and the sheriff came forward to reassure her. "And the raiders--what of them?" The girl's query was hastily made. "One fell from his horse, but we can find no trace of him. He seems to have escaped. Lend us your lantern," the sheriff added; "perhaps he crawled off into the weeds." "Here's a hat I found in the road!" The words came from an excited guard. "Fetch it to the light!" This from the sheriff. The guard obeyed. As the hat was held close to the light of the lantern, which the girl held obligingly over the rail, the men crowded around, eager to examine the one trophy of battle. "There's blood on it!" some voice exclaimed. "We must have wounded one of the rascals at least. Likely he's in hiding now, close by." "Lend us your lantern, Miss Sally." The sheriff reached out for it, but before his fingers closed over the handle, the girl's nervous hand suddenly relaxed its hold, and the lantern fell to the hard bed of the pike. The glass in the sides shivered as it struck, while the candle rolled out and was quickly extinguished in the white dust of the road. The girl became the picture of consternation. "Oh!" she cried, "just see what I have done!" "Perhaps it's the sight of blood. It makes some folks grow faint." The sheriff spoke consolingly, pitying the girl's embarrassment, and covertly regretting the accident. "I'm all upset!" acknowledged the pretty toll-taker frankly. She looked it, seemingly so innocent the while, one would scarcely have suspected the accident to have been hastily planned by woman's nimble wit, in order to gain yet more time before a further search could be made for the wounded man.