e power-plant
than I am."

"You should know why. They are not afraid of me. While my spirit is
willing enough, it was your skill and rapidity with a pistol that
frustrated four attempts at abduction in as many days. It is positively
uncanny, the way you explode into action. With all my practice, I didn't
even have my pistol out yesterday until it was all over. And besides
Prescott's guards, we had four policemen with us--detailed to 'guard'
us--because of the number of gunmen you had to kill before that!"

"It ain't practice so much, Mart--it's a gift. I've always been fast,
and I react automatically. You think first, that's why you're slow.
Those cops were funny. They didn't know what it was all about until it
was all over--all but calling the wagon. That was the worst yet. One of
their slugs struck directly in front of my left eye--it was kinda funny,
at that, seeing it splash--and I thought I was inside a boiler in a
riveting shop when those machine-guns cut loose. It was hectic, all
right, while it lasted. But one thing I'll tell the attentive
world--we're not doing all the worrying. Very few, if any, of the
gangsters they send after us are getting back. Wonder what they think
when they shoot at us and we don't drop?

"But I'm afraid I'm beginning to crack, Mart," Seaton went on, his voice
becoming grimly earnest. "I don't like anything about this whole mess. I
don't like all four of us wearing armor all the time. I don't like
living constantly under guard. I don't like all this killing. And this
constant menace of losing Dorothy, if I let her out of my sight for five
seconds, is driving me mad. To tell you the real truth, I'm devilishly
afraid that they'll figure out something that'll work. I could grab off
two women, or kill two men, if they had armor and guns enough to stock a
war. I believe that DuQuesne could, too--and the rest of that bunch
aren't imbeciles, either, by any means. I won't feel safe until all four
of us are in the _Skylark_ and a long ways from here. I'm sure glad
we're pulling out; and I don't intend to come back until I get a good
line on DuQuesne. He's the bird I'm going to get, and get right--and
when I get him I'll tell the cock-eyed world he'll stay got. There won't
be any two atoms of his entire carcass left in the same township. I
meant that promise when I gave it to him!"

"He realizes that fully. He knows that it is now definitely either his
life or our own, and he is really danger