But the gun kept jumping falsely in his hand. Bullets began to whine through the air about him, while the madman, Dave Lister, still ran right on into the white light to ruin.
He was not even using his gun, however blindly.
But Joe Mantry was shooting, firing just as his left foot parted from the ground each time. With his second shot he smashed the fragile mechanism of the searchlight. There was a crunching and then a tinkling fall of broken glass.
Tall Dave Lister, well in the lead of the other two, rounded the side of the little guard tower.
His two companions could see what happened. The horses were there, tied to a rack, looking like angels of promise to those panting runners. As Lister sprang for the rack, the rear door of the guard tower opened.
Lister fired twice. The door slammed shut, and there was a wild howling of pain from inside the little building.
Joe Mantry and his chief hit the saddle leather not a second behind Lister.
Out of the rear window of the guard tower a rifle began to fire. They angled the horses off to the side, along the slope, digging frantic heels into the flanks of the mustangs. And when was the mustang blood known to fail to respond to excitement? Every one of the three horses stretched out to full speed.
Two searchlights from the sides of the prison fingered the darkness, found the fugitives, and followed them. They slid in three beautifully clear silhouettes across the hillside.
Then a machine gun got to work. Its chatter ripped the night apart like the tearing of sailcloth. And the bullets kissed the air in closely grouped showers about the riders.
A half dozen bullets tore up the dust in front of Bray’s horse. Another group hummed mournfully in his ears. The next burst would probably split the difference between the two ranges and blast the lift out of his body.
But just then the horse dipped down into a gully. The searchlight, for a moment, was cut off by a meager wall of shadow. Into that shadow the machine guns still poured^ their fire. But the three riders were now following the twists of the gully that led them up over the crest of the first hill. From the top they looked back. Two searchlights, as though inspired, at the same instant struck them. But they had remained long enough to see a column of horsemen rushing out from the main gate of the prison. Another squad of horse was spurring from the southern, another from the northern guardhouse.
Still the alarm bell kept up its roar. It no longer had such a brazen sound. It was more of a howling note, at that distance, that went wavering across the hills.
VIII—DILLON’S PLACE
Dillon’s place stood half a mile from the edge of the town of Rusty Gulch, and fifty miles out of earshot of the clangor of the alarm bell of the Atwater prison. The three riders dropped the pursuit in the middle of the next day. They “borrowed” two changes of horses on the way, and finally left the armed hunters wandering through the mazes of a labyrinth of canyons north of Iron Mountain. Then they turned and drove with all their might for Rusty Gulch and Dillon’s place.
Because that was the home of Jimmy Lovell, who had betrayed them; Jimmy Lovell, who had got away from the pursuit through the self-sacrifice of the other three on that day of days.
Jimmy Lovell would have all of their fortune now, and no doubt he was spending some of the half million amazing the people in his home town. For that was the style of Jimmy. That was the size of his heart and his head. He was a fox, but he was a little fox. He would rather startle people by the spending of five-dollar bills than the squandering of thousands.
No, he would be back there at Rusty Gulch, as Phil Bray was sure, and in Rusty Gulch he would probably be at Dillon’s place. K only the three could reach that spot before the news of their break from prison could come to the ears of the guilty partner who had betrayed them!
So they rode hard and reached Dillon’s place outside of Rusty Gulch. It was night. The smell of the pines made the air seem honest and sweet. The stars were brighter than ever they had been, except when they were striving to show three fugitives on the roof of the Atwater prison. The three men dismounted among the trees near the road house and came slowly forward toward the light that burst out of the windows.
Dillon’s place was almost more famous for its lights than for its beer. There was a big gasoline lamp hanging in chains outside the front door to light up the watering troughs and all beneath the awning. There was another gasoline lamp of the same proportions hanging from the ceiling of the barroom. Men said that those lamps were dangerous affairs, that they might explode at any time, that if they exploded, every man within reach of the disturbance would be instantly killed by the terrible fumes, if not by the flames. Men complimented themselves on their brave willingness to endure such danger. They felt that Dillon himself was quite a hero.
Phil Bray, going ahead of his two companions, paused outside of the side window of the saloon with a strong shaft of the lamplight in his face.
He paused there and looked into the room with a strange expression of happiness in his eyes, as though he were drinking in a scene of surpassing beauty. He seemed to be listening to the sweetest music, also, though what he actually heard was a nasal tenor blatting out a cheap song in praise of whisky.
And what Phil Bray saw was a little red-headed man with a whimsical face capering on the top of a table with a whisky bottle in his hand, while a dozen other men leaned their elbows on the edge of the bar and laughed at the antics and the singing of the entertainer.
Phil Bray beckoned his two companions to approach. And at his shoulder they stood, agape, like him, with a sort of incredulous joy. For they recognized the singer as their former companion, the little traitor, Jimmy Lovell.
The three looked at one another speechlessly. They listened to the song. And they watched the flying feet of Jimmy Lovell. They had seen that dance before. Perhaps Jimmy would learn another sort of a dance step before long!
A sense of fate was on all three of them, for they felt that their delivery from the prison had been a continued miracle, and that they had been given their freedom so that they could work their just vengeance on rat-faced Jimmy Lovell.
A rider came to the front of the saloon at full gallop, halted his mustang with a jerk announced by the rattling of many pebbles, and came into the barroom. He was big, red-faced, red-necked. He came bustling in with the air of a person who has something important to announce, but he paused for a moment close to the doorway to grin at the capering picture of Jimmy Lovell.
As Jimmy ended his song and dance there was a great applause. Dillon, from behind the bar, was leaning his body to this side and to that, encouraging and inviting and multiplying the applause, closing his eyes and shaking his head, and laughing very heartily to indicate that he considered this fellow Lovell one of the most amusing chaps in the world.
“Stay up there, Jimmy!” cried Dillon. “You stay up there and sing us another, and then I’ll set up two rounds for the whole house.”
“Lemme kill him now!” breathed Joe Mantry. “Right now—to paste him in the mouth with a slug of lead. To turn that laugh of Junmy’s red. Come on, lemme finish him off.”
“He’s gotta see us. He’s gotta know what’s coming,” said Phil Bray. “Hold your horses, Joe. Jimmy wouldn’t know what hit him. And what would be the fun in that?”
Mantry did not argue, for the point was too patent.
Now the red-faced fellow who had just come in sauntered toward the bar, saying:
“Got some news, boys. I been down in Chester Lake, and the news, it just come in over the wire. There’s been hell raised in the Atwater penitentiary! Three gents busted right loose!”