down town, though taking the alarm, had moved too
slowly. A jail delivery meant, they knew, that their stores would be
looted, and, under the leadership of Atkinson, they attempted to avert
the mischief impending.

Gathering twenty-five determined men, they started with a shout for
the hill, only to see the sky already lighting with the flames of the
burning building. The mob, not understanding at first, welcomed the
new-comers with a roar of approval.

But they were soon undeceived. The vigilantes began to try to save the
jail and their efforts brought about the first clash of a night
destined long to be remembered in Medicine Bend. The brawlers in the
crowd stayed to fight the vigilantes. The thieves and night-birds fell
away in the darkness, and like black cats scurried down town to
pillage the stores and warehouses of the fire-fighters on the hill.

The few clerks and watchmen defending the stores, these knaves made
short work of. Dancing and Scott, with Stanley, Bucks, and a party of
railroad men, uneasy at the reports from the jail and now able to see
the sky reddening with the flames, moved in and out of the gloom of
side streets to keep track of the alarming situation and were the
earliest to discover the looting movement.

A convenient general store at Front and Hill Streets was the first to
be pillaged. Dancing wanted to lead a party against the looters, but
Stanley pointed out the folly of half a dozen men trying to police the
whole street.

"We can do nothing here, Bill. Those vigilantes have no business on
the hill. Get word to them, if you can, that the stores are being
robbed. They can't save the jail; they ought to come back and save
their own property. I can't bring men up from the roundhouse. We've
got to protect our own property first. If we could get word to
them--but a man never could get through that mob to the jail."

"I reckon I can, colonel," said Bill Dancing, throwing off his coat.

"They will kill you, Bill," predicted Stanley.

"No," growled the lineman, rolling up his shirt sleeves. "Not me. I
wouldn't stand for it."

CHAPTER XXI

Slipping away behind the long warehouses in Front Street and moving
swiftly in and out of friendly shadows on his long journey up the
hill, Dancing started for the jail. He was hardly more than well under
way when he was aware of one following him and, turning to fell him
with his fist, he started as he found it was Bucks.

The latter confron