attention to
the scene within the resort, as did the two men with him.

The bandit was backing away from the bar toward the rear of the room,
still keeping his guns thrust out before him, menacing the men who
stood with uplifted hands.

"You can tell your funny judge that I called!" he sang out as he
reached the rear door. "An' now, gents," he continued in an excited
voice, "it won't go well with the man that tries to get out this back
way too soon."

As he ceased speaking his guns roared. The two large hanging
lamps, suspended from the ceiling in the center, went out to the
accompaniment of shattered glass crashing on the floor. The three
smaller lamps above the back bar next were cut to splinters by
bullets and the place was in total darkness.

Then there was silence, save for the sound of a horse's hoofs coming
from somewhere behind the building.

Rathburn drew back from the window as a match flared within and his
two companions moved toward the front door. He stole around the corner
of the building and started on a run for the rear. He stopped when he
heard a horse galloping toward the east end of the street behind the
buildings which lined that side. He hurried behind two buildings which
did not extend as far as the resort and hastened up the street. He did
not once look back.

Behind him he heard shouts and men running in the street. He increased
his pace until he was running swiftly for the trees where he had left
his horse. From above he caught the dying echoes of hoofs flying on
the trail up the foothills by which he had come early that night.

The cries down the street increased, a gun barked, and bullets whined
over his head.

"The locoed fools!" he panted. "Didn't they hear that fellow ride
away?"

But the shooting evidently was of a promiscuous nature, for he heard
more shots around by the rear of the place where the robbery had been
committed. No more bullets were fired in his direction as he darted
into the black shadows of the trees.

He quickly untied his horse, mounted, rode in the shelter of the
timber to the east trail, and began the ascent, urging his horse to
its fastest walking gait up the hard trail. The fleeing bandit's
sounds of retreat no longer came to his ears, but he kept on, scanning
the open stretches of trail above in the starlight, a disparaging
smile playing upon his lips.

Back in the little town excitement was at a high pitch. Extra lamps
had been lighted in the reso