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Speaker 1: And arrest by Ambrose Bierce, having murdered his brother in

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law or In Brower of Kentucky was a fugitive from

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justice from the county jail, where he had been confined

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to await his trial. He had escaped by knocking down

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his jailer with an iron bar, robbing him of his keys,

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and opening the outer door, walking out into the night.

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The jailer being unarmed, Brower got no weapon with which

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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.

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This was many years ago, when the region was wilder

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than it is now. The night was pretty dark, with

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neither moon nor stars visible, and as Brower had never

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dwelt hereabout and knew nothing of the lay of the land,

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he was naturally not long in losing himself. He could

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not have said if he were getting further away from

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the town or going back to it, a most important

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fact to Ornbrower. He knew in either case a posse

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of citizens with a pack of bloodhounds would soon be

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on his track, and his chance of escape was very slender.

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But he did not wish to assist in his own

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pursuit even an added hour of freedom was worth having.

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Suddenly he emerged from the forest into an old road,

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and there before him saw indistinctly the figure of a man,

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motionless in the gloom. It was too late to retreat.

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The fugitive felt that at the first movement back toward

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the woods he would be, as he afterward explained, filled

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with buckshot. So the two stood there like trees, Brower

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nearly suffocated by the activity of his own heart, the other.

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The emotions of the other are not recorded. A moment later,

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it might have been an hour, the moon sailed into

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a patch of unclouded sky, and the hunted man saw

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that visible embodiment of law lift an arm and point

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significantly toward and beyond him, he understood. Turning his back

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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,

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actually aching with a prophecy of buckshot. Brower was as

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courageous a criminal as ever lived to be hanged. That

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was shown by the conditions of awful personal peril in

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which he had coolly killed his brother in law. It

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is needless to relate them here. They came out at

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his trial, and the revelation of his calmness in confronting

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them came near to saving his neck. But what would

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you have when a brave man is beaten? He submits.

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Only once did Brower venture a turn of the head,

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just once, when he was in deep shadow, and he

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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,

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and bearing upon his brow the livid mark of the

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iron bar or in Browerer had no further curiosity. He

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eventually they entered the town, which was all alight but deserted.

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Only the women and children remained, and they were off

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the streets straight toward the jail. The criminal held his

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way straight up to the main entrance. He walked, laid

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his hand upon the knob of the heavy iron door,

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

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the presence of a half dozen armed men. Then he

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turned nobody else entered. On a table in the corridor

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lay the dead body of Burton Duff. The end of

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an arrest by Ambrose Bierce