racing to spread the alarm.

The leader of the bank robbers swung round on Ferril. His voice was
harsh, menacing. He knew that every moment now counted. From under his
coat he had drawn a gunnysack.

"The bank money--quick. No silver--gold an' any bills you've got."

Ferril opened the safe. He stuffed into the sack both loose and packed
gold. He had a few bills, not many, for in the West paper money was then
used very little.

"No monkey business," snarled Houck after he had stood up against the
opposite wall the cattleman and the depositor who chanced to be in the
bank. "This all you got? Speak up, or I'll drill you."

The cashier hesitated, but the ominous hollow eye into which he looked
was persuasive. He opened an inner compartment lined with bags of gold.
These he thrust into the gunnysack.

The robber named Dave tied with shaking fingers the loose end of the
sack.

"Time to go," announced Houck grimly. "You're goin' with us far as our
horses--all of you. We ain't lookin' for to be bushwhacked."

He lined up the bodyguard in front and on each side of himself and his
accomplice. Against the back of the cattleman he pushed the end of the
revolver barrel.

"Lead the way," he ordered with an oath.

Houck had heard the sound of running feet along the street. He knew it
was more than likely that there would be a fight before he and his men
got out of town. This was not in his reckoning. The shots fired inside
the bank had been outside his calculations. They had been made necessary
only by the action of the teller. Jake's plan had been to do the job
swiftly and silently, to get out of town before word of what had taken
place reached the citizens. He had chosen Bear Cat as the scene of the
robbery because there was always plenty of money in the bank, because he
owed its people a grudge, and because it was so far from a railroad.

As he had outlined the hold-up to his fellows in crime, it had looked
like a moderately safe enterprise. But he realized now that he had
probably led them into a trap. Nearly every man in Bear Cat was a
big-game hunter. This meant that they were dead shots.

Houck knew that it would be a near thing if his party got away in time. A
less resolute man would have dropped the whole thing after the alarm had
been given and ridden away at once. But he was no quitter. So he was
seeing it out.

The cattleman led the procession through the side door into the street.

Sunshine warm and mello