But although mounted, the greater distance they had to traverse brought them to the rear of the building only as the Harrison party came to a sudden halt before the closed and barricaded doors of the usually defenceless barn.

The discomfiture of the latter was greeted by a derisive shout from the McKinstry party--albeit, equally astonished.

But in that brief moment Ford recognized in the leader of the Harrisons the well-known figure of the Sheriff of Tuolumne.

It needed only this to cap the climax of the fatality that seemed to pursue him.

He was no longer a lawless opposer of equally lawless forces, but he was actually resisting the law itself.