And arrest by Ambrose Bierce, having murdered his brother in law or In Brower
of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice from the county jail, where he had
been confined to await his trial. He had escaped by knocking down his jailer
with an iron bar, robbing him of his keys, and opening the outer
door, walking out into the night. The jailer being unarmed, Brower got
no weapon with which to defend his recovered liberty. As soon as he was
out of town, he had the folly to enter a forest. This was
many years ago, when the region was wilder than it is now. The
night was pretty dark, with neither moon nor stars visible, and as Brower
had never dwelt hereabout and knew nothing of the lay of the land, he
was naturally not long in losing himself. He could not have said if he
were getting further away from the town or going back to it. A most
important fact to Orin Brauer. He knew in either case a posse of citizens
with a pack of bloodhounds would soon be on his track, and his chance
of escape was very slender. But he did not wish to assist in his
own pursuit, even an added hour of freedom was worth having. Suddenly he
emerged from the forest into an old road, and there before him saw indistinctly
the figure of a man, motionless in the gloom. It was too late
to retreat. The fugitive felt that at the first movement back toward the woods
he would be, as he afterward explained, filled with buckshot. So the
two stood there like trees, Brower nearly suffocated by the activity of his own
heart, the other. The emotions of the other are not recorded. A
moment later, it might have been an hour, the moon sailed into a
patch of unclouded sky, and the hunted man saw that visible embodiment of law
lift an arm and point significantly toward and beyond him, he understood. Turning
his back to his captor, he walked submissively away in the direction indicated,
looking to neither the right nor left his head, and back, actually aching
with a prophecy of buckshot. Brower was as courageous a criminal as ever lived
to be hanged. That was shown by the conditions of awful personal peril in
which he had coolly killed his brother in law. It is needless to relate
them here they came out at his trial, and the revelation of his calmness
in confronting them came near to saving his neck. But what would you have
when a brave man is beaten? He submits. Only once did Brower venture
a turn of the head, just once, when he was in deep shadow,
and he knew that the other was in moonlight. He looked backward.
His captor was Burton Duff, the jailer, as white as death, and
bearing upon his brow the livid mark of the iron bar or in Brower had
no further curiosity. He eventually they entered the town, which was all alight
but deserted. Only the women and children remained, and they were off the
streets straight toward the jail. The criminal held his way straight up to the
main entrance. He walked, laid his hand upon the knob of the heavy
iron door, pushed it open without command, entered, and found himself in
the presence of a half dozen armed men. Then he turned nobody else entered.
On a table in the corridor lay the dead body of Burton Duff.
The end of and arrest by Ambrose Bierce