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And arrest by Ambrose Bierce, having
murdered his brother in law or In Brower

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of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice
from the county jail, where he had

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been confined to await his trial.
He had escaped by knocking down his jailer

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with an iron bar, robbing him
of his keys, and opening the outer

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door, walking out into the night. The jailer being unarmed, Brower got

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no weapon with which to defend his
recovered liberty. As soon as he was

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out of town, he had the
folly to enter a forest. This was

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many years ago, when the region
was wilder than it is now. The

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night was pretty dark, with neither
moon nor stars visible, and as Brower

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had never dwelt hereabout and knew nothing
of the lay of the land, he

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was naturally not long in losing himself. He could not have said if he

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were getting further away from the town
or going back to it. A most

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important fact to Orin Brauer. He
knew in either case a posse of citizens

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with a pack of bloodhounds would soon
be on his track, and his chance

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of escape was very slender. But
he did not wish to assist in his

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own pursuit, even an added hour
of freedom was worth having. Suddenly he

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emerged from the forest into an old
road, and there before him saw indistinctly

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the figure of a man, motionless
in the gloom. It was too late

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to retreat. The fugitive felt that
at the first movement back toward the woods

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he would be, as he afterward
explained, filled with buckshot. So the

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two stood there like trees, Brower
nearly suffocated by the activity of his own

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heart, the other. The emotions
of the other are not recorded. A

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moment later, it might have been
an hour, the moon sailed into a

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patch of unclouded sky, and the
hunted man saw that visible embodiment of law

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lift an arm and point significantly toward
and beyond him, he understood. Turning

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his back to his captor, he
walked submissively away in the direction indicated,

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looking to neither the right nor left
his head, and back, actually aching

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with a prophecy of buckshot. Brower
was as courageous a criminal as ever lived

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to be hanged. That was shown
by the conditions of awful personal peril in

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which he had coolly killed his brother
in law. It is needless to relate

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them here they came out at his
trial, and the revelation of his calmness

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in confronting them came near to saving
his neck. But what would you have

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when a brave man is beaten?
He submits. Only once did Brower venture

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a turn of the head, just
once, when he was in deep shadow,

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and he knew that the other was
in moonlight. He looked backward.

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His captor was Burton Duff, the
jailer, as white as death, and

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bearing upon his brow the livid mark
of the iron bar or in Brower had

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no further curiosity. He eventually they
entered the town, which was all alight

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but deserted. Only the women and
children remained, and they were off the

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streets straight toward the jail. The
criminal held his way straight up to the

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main entrance. He walked, laid
his hand upon the knob of the heavy

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iron door, pushed it open without
command, entered, and found himself in

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the presence of a half dozen armed
men. Then he turned nobody else entered.

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On a table in the corridor lay
the dead body of Burton Duff.

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The end of and arrest by Ambrose
Bierce