There was no sign of him, so Hobbs rode slowly forward, intent upon asking the woodmen--for such they appeared to be--to accompany him to the glen, now but a short distance ahead.
As he drew nearer, it struck him forcibly that the men were not what he had thought them to be.

They were an evil-looking lot, more like the strikers he had seen in the town earlier in the day.

Even as he was turning the new thought over in his mind, one of them stepped out of the little knot, and, without a word of warning, lifted his arm and fired point blank at the little Englishman.

A pistol ball whizzed close by his head.

His horse leaped to the side of the road in terror, almost unseating him.
But Hobbs had fighting blood in his veins.