extremely glad that he had refrained, for as he ap-

proached the stack a huge bulk slowly loomed from be-

hind it; and silhouetted against the moonlit sky he saw

the vast proportions of a great, shaggy bull. The burglar

tore the inside of one trousers' leg and the back of his

coat in his haste to pass through the barbed wire fence

onto the open road. There he paused to mop the per-

spiration from his forehead, though the night was now

far from warm.

For another mile the now tired and discouraged

house-breaker plodded, heavy footed, the unending

road. Did vain compunction stir his youthful breast? Did

he regret the safe respectability of the plumber's appren-

tice? Or, if he had not been a plumber's apprentice did

he yearn to once again assume the unharried peace of

whatever legitimate calling had been his before he bent

his steps upon the broad boulevard of sin? We think he

did.

And then he saw through the chinks and apertures

in the half ruined wall of what had once been a hay

barn the rosy flare of a genial light which appeared to

announce in all but human terms that man, red blooded

and hospitable, forgathered within. No growling dogs,

no bulking bulls contested the short stretch of weed

grown ground between the road and the disintegrat-

ing structure; and presently two wide, brown eyes were

peering through a crack in the wall of the abandoned

building. What they saw was a small fire built upon

the earth floor in the center of the building and around

the warming blaze the figures of six men. Some reclined

at length upon old straw; others squatted, Turk fash-

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