"Here's a hat I found in the road!" The words came from an excited guard.
"Fetch it to the light!" This from the sheriff.
The guard obeyed. As the hat was held close to the light of the lantern, which the girl held obligingly over the rail, the men crowded around, eager to examine the one trophy of battle.
"There's blood on it!" some voice exclaimed. "We must have wounded one of the rascals at least. Likely he's in hiding now, close by."
"Lend us your lantern, Miss Sally."
The sheriff reached out for it, but before his fingers closed over the handle, the girl's nervous hand suddenly relaxed its hold, and the lantern fell to the hard bed of the pike. The glass in the sides shivered as it struck, while the candle rolled out and was quickly extinguished in the white dust of the road. The girl became the picture of consternation.
"Oh!" she cried, "just see what I have done!"
"Perhaps it's the sight of blood. It makes some folks grow faint."
The sheriff spoke consolingly, pitying the girl's embarrassment, and covertly regretting the accident.
"I'm all upset!" acknowledged the pretty toll-taker frankly. She looked it, seemingly so innocent the while, one would scarcely have suspected the accident to have been hastily planned by woman's nimble wit, in order to gain yet more time before a further search could be made for the wounded man.