He stiffened, and the first shadows of the night were split by a long, narrow flame-streak as his rifle crashed. And a man who had been slipping into the shelter of a depression on the side of a hill a hundred yards distant, tumbled grotesquely out and down, and went sliding to the bottom of the gorge. As though the report of Bud’s rifle were a signal, a dozen vivid jets of fire flamed from various points in the surrounding hills, and the silence was rent by the vicious cracking of rifles and the drone and thud of bullets as they sped over the heads of the two men at the bottom of the gorge and flattened themselves against the rocks of their shelter. That sound, too, died away. And in the heavy, portentous stillness which succeeded it, there came to the ears of the two besieged men the sounds of distant shouting, faint and far. “It’s the outfit!” said Taylor. And Bud, rolling over and over in an excess of joy over the coming of the Arrow men, hugged an imaginary form and yelled: “Oh, Bothwell, you old son-of-a-gun! How I love you!” CHAPTER XXVIII—THE FUGITIVE One thought dominated Marion Harlan’s brain as she packed her belongings into the little handbag in her room at the Arrow—an overpowering, monstrous, hideous conviction that she had accepted charity from the man who was accused of murdering her father! There was no room in her brain for other thoughts or emotions; she was conscious of nothing but the horror of it; of the terrible uncertainty that confronted her—of the dread that Taylor _might_ be guilty! She wanted to believe in him—she _did_ believe in him, she told herself as she packed the bag; she could not accept the word of Keats as final. And yet she could not stay at the Arrow another minute—she could not endure the uncertainty. She must go away somewhere—anywhere, until the charge were proved, or until she could see Taylor, to look into his eyes, there to see his guilt or innocence. She felt that the charge could not be true; for Taylor had treated her so fairly; he had been so sympathetically friendly; he had seemed to share her grief over her father’s death, and he had seemed so sincere in his declaration of his friendliness toward the man. He had even seemed to share her grief; and in the hallowed moments during which he had stood beside her while she had looked into her father’s room, he might have been secretly laughing at her! And into her heart as she stood in the room, now, there crept a mighty shame—and the shadow of her mother’s misconduct never came so close as it did now. For she, too, had violated the laws of propriety; and what she was receiving was not more than her just due. And yet, though she could blame herself for coming to the Arrow, she could not excuse Taylor’s heinous conduct if he were guilty.