COWARD'S BATTLE By La Rue Daniel Arnold Henley trudged along in the cold November darkness over the road that led to his home. His coat collar was pulled up over his ears almost to the down-turned brim of his hat, and his hands were pushed deep into his pockets. His eyes were on the road just before him, and never on the thick forest on either side of him, for he knew his way well and had no need to watch his surroundings. He had not walked on road for seven long years and he found all of the things he had expected to forget pushing their way through the veil of years that hung in his mind before his memories of home. Suddenly a voice cracked out of the darkness and cracked back in again as a whip snapped at circus animals. Arnold stopped in his tracks, trying to determine where the voice had come from, and what it had said. He had been so deep in thought that he had missed the words, but he was sure they had been directed at him. The sharp voice whipped out of the night again. It seemed to be coming from the thick foliage to the right of him. This time Arnold caught the words. "Who's there?" And he heard a strange, sliding muffled, metallic sound as the words were spoken. "Wh-Why, it's me, Arnold Henley." There was no reply, but the startling, blinding, white ribbon, stole along the ground, up his body and hit him in the face. "Take off your hat." Arnold obeyed like a trained animal. The beam flashed out and in again. "Stay there." The bushes a few yards to Arnold's right began to move and he heard footsteps coming toward him. He heard the man climb through the barbed - wire fence, and soon the footsteps stopped about two feet away from him. "What do you want?" Arnold stammered. He could make out the faint 9. outline of a man who was very familiar to him, Boze Wilkins. Boze was shorter than Arnold, and rather heavy-set. Arnold remembered Boze's face as one that was rough, but strong and honest. Boze flashed his beam in Arnold's face again, and quickly turned it off. He held a Winchester rifle on his arm. Boze's voice was full of sarcastic delight when he said, "Well, well, if it ain't Arnold Henley. 'When did the brave hero get back?" Arnold ignored the question, and the man's insulting attitude. "What are you doing?" he asked, "Acting as a reception committee?" "I guess I might double for that, too, but I'm really out here as a posse member. There's a killer loose in these woods. Killed two people in town in a robbery. If you want to go on home, I'll lend you this Luger, I picked up overseas. But you probably won't want to defend yourself, so you had better stick with me until we catch him." Arnold's face burned with shame. But he said, "Thanks, Boze, I will borrow the gun, if you don't mine." Arnold would do anything to save face before Boze, who had always been the admired leader of all the boys in the neighborhood when they were children. Boze saw clearly that Arnold was playing a part but he handed him the Luger and said, "Here y'are. I just thought I'd bring two, just in case, you know. If you catch him, don't be too hard in him." This time Boze's whip almost cut through the armor of self - control that Arnold had built. But the seven years of thickening and strengthening this armor against assaults from all quarters had helped very much and Arnold managed to say only, "Thank you." "'S all right. You gonna stay around these parts long, Henley?" "Yeah, I guess I'll be here for good now, and help Dad with the farm. He's gettin' along, you know." "Think your Dad'll want your help, Henley?" "Sure, he needs me. Why shouldn't he want me?" Boze's words had frightened Arnold Henley. He began to fear, that, maybe he wasn't to go home, after all. Perhaps there