he right they heard
the shouts of the men who were fighting the fire at the roundhouse and
the hot crackling of the flames. They reached the station together and
entered the waiting-room by a rear door.

Men were running everywhere in and out of the building and the
waiting-room was barricaded for war. Bill Dancing caught a passing
trainman by the arm.

"What's going on here?"

The man looked at the lineman and his companion in surprise: "The
gamblers are driving the vigilantes, Bill. They've got all Front
Street. What's the matter with you?"

Dancing caught sight of Bob Scott coming down the rear stairway with
an armful of rifles, and, without answering the question, called to
him.

"Hello!" exclaimed Scott halting. He started as he saw Bucks. "Were
_you_ with him? And I've been scouring the town for you! Stanley will
have a word to say to you, youngster. They thought the gamblers had
you, Bill," he added, turning to the lineman.

Dancing, a sight from the pounding he had taken, his clothing in
tatters, and with the blood-stains now streaked by the water dripping
from his hair, drew himself up. "I hope you didn't think so, Bob? Did
they reckon a handful of blacklegs would get me?"

Scott grinned inscrutably. "They've got the best part of your shirt,
Bill. How did you get off?"

"Swam for it," muttered Dancing, shaking himself. "Where's Stanley?"

"Out behind the flat cars. He is arming the vigilantes. We've fenced
off the yards with loaded freight-cars. They've fired the roundhouse
on us, but the rifles and ammunition that came to-night are upstairs
here. Take some of these guns, Bill, and hand them around in front.
Bucks can follow you with a box of ammunition."

Scott spoke hurriedly and ran out of the door facing Front Street
Square. A string of flat cars had been run along the house-track in
front of the station, and behind these the hard-pressed vigilantes,
reinforced now by the railroad men, were taking up a new line of
defence. Driven through the town in a running battle, they were in
straits when they reached Stanley's barricade.

Following a resolve already well defined, the railroad chief conferred
with the vigilante leaders for a brief moment. He called them to his
office and denounced the folly of half-way measures.

"You see," said Stanley, pointing to two dead men whom the discomfited
business men had brought off with them, "what temporizing has done.
There is only one way to treat with th