Page:McCulley--Black Star's camapign.djvu/210

210 A dog, attracted by the men in the woods, had been running from one group to another. Now, chasing a stick one of the men had thrown, he brushed against the fence. A single yelp came from him; and he was stretched on the ground, apparently lifeless.

"You see?" Verbeck said. "Perhaps it wouldn't kill a man, but it would burn him badly, and put him out of the game."

"We've got to get through!" the chief declared. "And how are we going to do it?"

One of the electricians had crawled forward, and they explained the situation to him.

"If the current is that strong, we can't fool with it," he said earnestly. "Electricity isn't a timid plaything at best, and a dose like that fence hands out is too much for anybody. You'll notice that the dog hasn't moved; he's dead. And since we can't get through that fence"

"We can go over it!" Verbeck added.

"How?" the chief and sheriff asked in chorus.

"Bridge the thing," said Verbeck. "We've got men enough, and there are trees enough."

"It'll be one ticklish job," the electrician warned.

"But it can be done," Verbeck declared. "Chief, have all your men watch the house closely. If anybody in there tries to interfere with me, bombard the place."

Verbeck sprang up and ran parallel to the fence for a distance of half a hundred feet. He had spotted a big tree there that had a projecting branch not fifteen feet from the ground—a branch half a foot in diameter that extended over the fence and into the yard about the house. He swung himself