ine of retreat be kept
open. This Stanley had undertaken to provide. Atkinson, making a
wide detour back of the station, led his men down the railroad
tracks and, reaching a point where concealment was no longer
possible, double-quicked up Fort Street and charged with his party
across the little park.

They had already been seen. A line of men, posted behind the places
that line Front Street at that point, opened fire. It was the worst
possible answer to make to men in the temper of the scattered line
that swept up the street in the glare of the burning buildings.
Wounded men dropped out of the charge, but those that went on carried
with them a more implacable determination. Re-forming their line under
cover of the cedars at the corner of Fort Street, they directed an
effective fire into the dance halls adjoining, and the rioters hiding
within scurried from them like rats.

But the vigilantes were intent first of all on capturing and burning
the hall known as the Three Horses, and the rioters rallied to its
defence. As the place was assailed, the doors were barred and a sharp
fire was poured through the windows. The assailants were driven back.
Bill Dancing, heated and stubborn, refused to retreat and, picking up
a sledge dropped by a fleeing vigilante, attacked the barred doors
single-handed.

The street, swept by the bullets of the fray, rang with the splitting
blows of the heavy hammer, as the lineman, his long hair flying from
his forehead, swung at the thick panels. Within, the gamblers tried to
shoot him from the windows, but he stood close and his friends kept
up a constant supporting fire that drove the defenders back.

From above they hurled chairs and tables down on Dancing, but his head
seemed furniture-proof, and scorning to waste time in dodging he
hammered away, undaunted, until he splintered the panels and the stout
lock-stiles gave. The vigilantes, running up, tore through the door
chains with crowbars and rushed the building.

The fight in the big room lasted only a moment. The rioters crowded
toward the rear and escaped as best they could. Vigilantes with
torches made short work of the rest of it. Dancing stove in a cask of
alcohol, and as the attacking party ran out of the front door a torch
was flung back into the spreading pool.

A great burst of fire lighted the street. The next moment the long
building was in flames.

Emboldened by this success and driving the outlaws from their further