There is a nasty bit on the trail from the Little Bear to the Hill, steep as a staircase, narrow as a rabbit-run, and overhung with manzanita. The place is trumpet-mouthed in shape, and sound carries far. So, on the second night of his watch, Schuster could at last plainly hear the certain sounds that he had been waiting for—sounds that jarred sharply on the prolonged roll of the Morning Star stamps, a quarter of a mile beyond the canyon. The sounds were those of a horse threshing through the gravel and shallow water of the ford in the river just below. He heard the horse grunt as he took the slope of the nearer bank, and the voice of his rider speaking to him came distinctly to his ears. Then silence for one—two—three minutes, while the stamp mill at the Morning Star purred and rumbled unceasingly and Schuster’s heart pumped thickly in his throat. Then a blackness blacker than that of the night heaved suddenly against the grey of "the sky, close in upon him, and a pebble clicked beneath a shod hoof. "Pull up!" Schuster was in the midst of the trail, his cheek caressing the varnished stock. "Whoa! Steady there! What in hell——" "Pull up. You know what’s wanted. Chuck us that brick." The superintendent chirped sharply to the horse, spurring with his left heel. "Stand clear there, God damn you! I’ll ride you down!" The stock leaped fiercely in Schuster’s arm-pit, nearly knocking him down, and, in the light of two parallel flashes, he saw an instantaneous picture—rugged skyline, red-tinted manzanita bushes, the plunging mane and head of a horse, and above it a Face with open mouth and staring eyes, smoke-wreathed and hatless. The empty stirrup thrashed across Schuster’s body as the horse scraped by him. The trail was dark in front of him. He could see nothing. But soon he heard a little bubbling noise and a hiccough. Then all fell quiet again. "I got you, all right!" Thus Schuster, the ex-floor-walker, whose part hitherto in his little life-drama had been to say, "first aisle left," "elevator, second floor," "first counter right." Then he went down on his knees, groping at the warm bundle in front of him. But he found no brick. It had never occurred to him that the superintendent might ride over to town for other reasons than merely to ship the week’s cleanup. He struck a light and looked more closely—looked at the man he had shot. He could not tell whether it was the superintendent or not, for various reasons, but chiefly because the barrels of the gun had been sawn off, the gun loaded with buckshot, and both barrels fired simultaneously at close range. Men coming over the trail from the Hill the next morning found the young superintendent, and spread the report of what had befallen him. * * * * *