r man
eventually comes to the same realization.

In striking contrast to his feeling that minutes were hours a few
moments before, it seemed only five or six seconds before the headlight
of the oncoming train pierced through the darkness of the night. He felt
that it was coming toward them faster than any train had ever traveled.
A fear that there had been a mistake and that the engineer could not
possibly bring the heavy train to a stop before the locomotive wheels
struck the derailer seized him.

The detective was on his feet, rifle ready to be thrown to his shoulder.
Brennan leaped up and John saw that he held the automatic in his hand.

Then the sound for which they had so anxiously waited came up to them
from the track below. They could hear the brakes grinding and shrieking
against the wheels of the locomotive and the coaches.

The detective dashed through the brush, stumbling and falling almost
headlong as he pitched himself down into the gully. Brennan, John and
Benton were at his heels. John's right hand gripped the automatic Gibson
had loaned him.

There was a shot, a curse, another shot. Then it seemed to John a
thousand shots were fired. He saw the detective throw the rifle to his
shoulder and there was a spurt of flame after a quick aim. In a
descending circle he saw the flash of guns fired by the other detectives
coming down from the hilltop. He saw Brennan--and it surprised
him--shooting down into the gully "throwing" his shots in the cowboy
fashion he had read of.

He tripped and fell, the automatic flew from his hand. When he got to
his feet, slightly stunned by his fall, the shooting had stopped. He
ran into the pit of the gully at reckless speed.

He saw Gibson on his back on the ground, two men kneeling at his side,
tearing his shirt from his shoulder. He saw a crimson stain spreading on
Gibson's shirt. A few yards away he saw "Red Mike" spilled in a heap,
hemmed in by a ring of Gibson's detectives each with a sawed-off shotgun
pointed down at him.

"Where's that damned photographer?" Brennan demanded.

"Coming," they heard a voice shout and Benton was beside them, screwing
his camera into his tripod as he hurried forward.

"Gibson?" asked John, panting.

"He's all right--bullet scratch on the shoulder--that's all--he got 'Red
Mike,' I guess," Brennan answered in jerks.

John looked toward the train. The cowcatcher of the locomotive, which
stood panting like some frightened, trembling