He nodded as he ran out of the door and into the alley behind.

Platt & Fortner's was erecting a brick store building, the first of its kind in Bear Cat. The walls were up to the second story and the window frames were in. Through the litter of rubbish left by the workmen Bob picked a hurried way to one of the window spaces. Two men were crouched in another of these openings not fifteen feet from him.

"How many of 'em?" he asked in a loud whisper.

Blister answered from the embrasure opposite. "D-don't know."

"Still in the bank, are they?"

"Yes."

Some one peered out of Dolan's through the crack of a partly opened door.

Bob caught the gleam of the sun upon the barrel of a gun. A hat with a pair of eyes beneath the rim of it showed above the sill of a window in the blacksmith shop opposite. Bear Cat was all set for action.

A man was standing beside some horses near the back door of Platt & Fortner's. He was partially screened from Bob's view by one of the broncos and by a freight wagon, but the young cattleman had a fleeting impression that he was Bandy Walker. Was he, too, waiting to get a shot at the bandits? Probably so. He had a rifle in his hands. But it struck Dillon he was taking chances. When the robbers came out of the bank they would be within thirty feet of him.

Out of the front door of the bank a little group of men filed. Two of them were armed. The others flanked them on every side. Ferril the cashier carried a gunnysack heavily loaded.

A man stepped out upon the platform in front of Platt & Fortner's. From his position he looked down on the little bunch of men moving toward the horses. Bandy Walker, beside the horses, called on Houck to hurry, that they were being surrounded.

"I've got you covered. Throw down yore guns," the man on the platform shouted to the outlaws, rifle at shoulder.

Houck's revolver flashed into the air. He fired across the shoulder of the man whom he was using as a screen. The rifleman on the store porch sat down suddenly, his weapon clattering to the ground.

"Another of 'em," Houck said aloud with a savage oath. "Any one else lookin' for it?"

Walker moved forward with the horses. Afraid that general firing would begin at any moment, Ferril dropped the sack and ran for the shelter of the wagons. His flight was a signal for the others who had been marshaled out of the bank. They scattered in a rush for cover.

Instantly Houck guessed what would follow. From every side a volley of bullets would be concentrated on him and his men. He too ran, dodging back into the bank.

He was not a tenth part of a second too soon. A fusillade of shots poured down. It seemed that men were firing from every door, window, and street corner. Bandy Walker fell as he started to run. Two bullets tore through his heart, one from each side. The big cowpuncher never stirred from his tracks. He went down at the first volley. Five wounds, any one of which would have been mortal, were later found in his body and head.

All told, the firing had not lasted as long as it would take a man to run across a street. Bear Cat had functioned. The bank robbers were out of business.

The news spread quicker than the tongue could tell it. From all directions men, women, and children converged toward the bank. In the excitement the leader of the bandits was forgotten for a minute or two.

"What about the third fellow?" a voice asked.

The question came from Dud Hollister. He had reached the scene too late to take any part in the battle, much to his chagrin.

"Went into the bank," Blister said. "I s-saw him duck in just before the shooting began."

The building was surrounded and rushed. Houck was not inside. Evidently he had run out of the back door and made for the willows by the river. A boy claimed that he had seen a man running in that direction.

A crowd of armed men beat the willows on both banks for a distance of a mile both up and down the stream wherever there was cover. No trace of the outlaw could be found. Posses on horseback took up the search. These posses not only rode up and down the river. They scoured the mesa on the other bank all day. When night fell Houck was still at large.

CHAPTER XLI

IN A LADY'S CHAMBER

The drama of the hold-up and of the retribution that had fallen upon the bandits had moved as swiftly as though it had been rehearsed. There had been no wasted words, no delay in the action. But in life the curtain does not always drop at the right moment. There was anticlimax in Bear Cat after the guns had ceased to boom. In the reaction after the strain the tongues of men and women were loosened. Relief expressed itself in chatter. Everybody had some contributing incident to tell.

Into the clatter Dud Hollister's voice cut sharply. "Some one get Doc Tuckerman, quick."

He was bending over the wounded man on the platform, trying to stop the flow of blood from a little hole in the side.

Mollie stepped toward him. "Carry Art into the hotel. I'll have a bed ready for him time you get there. Anybody else hurt?"

"Some one said Ferril was shot."

"No. He's all right. There he is over there by the wagons. See? Lookin'

after the gold in the sack."

Blister came to the door of the bank in time to hear Mollie's question.

"McCray's been s-shot--here in the bank."

"Bring him in too," ordered Mollie.

The wounded men were given first aid and carried into the hotel. There their wounds were dressed by the doctor.

In the corridor outside Bob and his partner met June coming out of one of the rooms where the invalids had been taken. She was carrying a towel and some bandages.

"Got to get a move on me," Dud said. "I got in after the fireworks were over. Want to join Blister's posse now. You comin', Bob?"

"Not now," Dillon answered.

He was white to the lips. There was a fear in his mind that he might be going to disgrace himself by getting sick. The nausea had not attacked him until the shooting was over. He was much annoyed at himself, but the picture of the lusty outlaws lying in the dust with the life stricken out of them had been too much.

"All right. I'll be hustlin' along," Dud said, and went.

Bob leaned against the wall.

June looked at him with wise, understanding mother-eyes. "It was kinda awful, wasn't it? Gave me a turn when I saw them lying there. Must have been worse for you. Did you--hit ..?"

"No." He was humiliated at the confession. "I didn't fire a shot.

Couldn't, somehow. Everybody was blazin' away at 'em. That's the kind of nerve I've got," he told her bitterly.

In her eyes the starlight flashed. "An' that's the kind I love. Oh, Bob, I wouldn't want to think you'd killed either of those poor men, an' one of them just a boy."

"Some one had to do it."

"Yes, but not you. And they didn't have to brag afterward about it, did they? That's horrible. Everybody going around telling how they shot them.

As if it was something to be proud of. I'm so glad you're not in it. Let the others have the glory if they want it."