"Doe Furniss! Come over here!" called Reade. "Gentlemen, this is a question for Doe Furniss. Don't think of doing anything to the fellow until you've heard from Doc. Make way for the doctor, gentlemen."

At a sign from Dr. Furniss the captors led Ashby's horse onward until the office shack was reached. Here two men freed the captive from his horse and led him inside. Dr. Furniss followed them and the door was closed.

"Let's get away from here," urged Tom Reade. "A big crowd hanging about is sure to excite the poor fellow."

"Reade, you're too soft and easy," grunted a Paloma man in the crowd.

"The only thing that makes Ashby crazy is that he didn't get you."

"He did 'get' me, however," laughed Tom, displaying four bullet holes through his shirtsleeves, and two more that pierced his hat. "Ashby got as much of me as I'd want any marksman to get."

Having withdrawn to a distance, the crowd waited.

It was nearly half an hour before Dr. Furniss stepped outside. Now he walked swiftly over to the edge of the crowd.

"Gentlemen," remarked the physician, "you are justified in feeling very well pleased that you didn't lynch Ashby. The poor fellow is as insane as a man could well be. He imagines Mr. Reade has hurt his business and is determined to kill him. I'll send for a straightjacket and then we'll hustle him away to the asylum."

At this moment a wild yell sounded from the shack, to be echoed from the crowd. George Ashby, seemingly possessed of the strength of half a dozen men, had wrenched himself free of his captors, felling both like a flash. Then the hotel man leaped to his horse, freeing it and starting off at a mad gallop.

Instantly a score of men set off after the fugitive, swinging their lariats as they rode.

Crack! Crack! Bang!

s.n.a.t.c.hing still another automatic revolver from one of his saddle bags, Ashby was now firing at those riding behind him.

The line of hors.e.m.e.n wavered somewhat. They might have fired in return, and have brought down their quarry, but no brave man likes to think of shooting a lunatic.

So, still firing as he went, Ashby once more reached the edge of the quicksand.

Now, riding as fast as he could urge his pony, the hotel man dashed out on the Man-killer.

Nor was he riding over the part that had been rendered safe by the young engineers.

Instead, he was riding to the southward of the railroad property--straight out where he was likely to find a speedy death in the engulfing sands.

"Stop, Ashby! Come back!" shouted a dozen voices. "You'll be swallowed up in the quick-sands."

Brave as they were, the pursuers now rein up sharply. It seemed to them sheer madness to ride out thus to their certain deaths.

"Ashby is crazy, all right," remarked bronzed man. "None but an insane man would ride out there."

Somewhat tardily automobile parties started in pursuit. These vehicles were halted at the edge of the quicksand. Tom and Harry had also come this far.

In the background the halted crowd watched in suspense as George Ashby galloped over the treacherous sand.

Several times the pony's hoofs were seen to sink, yet each time the animal seemed able to draw his feet out of the sand and go on again.

"It's a crazy man's luck," cried an Arizona man thickly. "Of course, here and there on the Man-killer there are safe, sound spots, and Ashby is having the luck of his life in hitting all the sound spots in getting across. But I wouldn't follow him for a thousand dollars a minute!"

The mad hotel man was soon lost to view on the other side of one of the little hills of sand.

There would have been little sense in trying to follow him or to head him off, even by more roundabout courses. Ashby was now far enough away to elude any pursuit that might start.

"I wonder if Reade has any idea of what he's up against now?" murmured the mayor of Paloma. "That crazy man is loose, and sooner or later he'll be heard from again."

CHAPTER XX. DUFF PROMISES THE "SQUARE DEAL"

Altogether the day had been a hugely satisfactory one to the young chief engineer.

The first test had been made, and, all had pa.s.sed off well, for, in Tom Reade's easy-going, fearless mind the peculiar doings of George Ashby did not figure at all as a part of the day's work.

"Harry, we've every reason to feel proud of ourselves" mused Tom aloud, as he undressed in the shack that night.

"You feel pretty certain that we've conquered the Man-killer, do you?"

Hazelton asked, as he laid down the book he had been reading.

Of late, since the burning of the Cactus House, the chums had slept in the shack, though still getting many of their meals in town.

"Oh, of course you know that we haven't won, the whole fight yet," Reade went on. "We've plenty of work to do here still before we p.r.o.nounce the job finished. But to-day's shows that our plan for filling in this particular, kind of quicksand was a sound one. You know the president of the road said that words failed to express his complete approbation of our work."

"We certainly have been remarkably fortunate--so far," Harry admitted.

"Yet I must confess, Tom, that I'm still nervous."

"Then it must be over Ashby," Tom laughed.

"Ashby be hanged!" Hazelton retorted. "I haven't given him a thought this evening. No, I'm still nervous about our job here. The first test was all right--that is, it was all right to-day. But these quicksands are treacherous. Our roadbed may be all right for a fortnight, and may seem as safe as we could wish it to be. Then, all of a sudden, within sixty seconds, it may sink before our very eyes. Suppose it were to sink while a trainload of human beings was pa.s.sing over it!"

"You might as well dismiss all such thoughts," Reade counseled. "I tell you, Harry, we've proved that our principle is sound. Now, we will go ahead and finish the job. When we go away from here I, for one, shall feel certain that the Man-killer must behave for all time to come.

Harry, there's a limit to the shifting tendency of a quicksand, and to-day's test proves to me that we've found it. We've won. I wish I were as sure of a dozen other things as I am that we've won out here to-day."

"All right, then," smiled Hazelton. "You're a smarter engineer than I am, Tom, old fellow. If you're satisfied, then I'm bound to be, for I'll back your judgment in engineering against my own."

"That's rather more praise, Harry, than I expect or wish," Reade rejoined soberly. "But I don't see how the Man-killer can ever again a.s.sert himself against the A. G. & N. M.'s roadbed."

"Oh, I'm only an old croaker, I know," Harry confessed. "I've got a blue streak on to-night. Or else it's a fit of apprehension about something or other. I feel as if--"

Crack! crack!

Outside two shots rang suddenly out, to be followed by a dozen swift, scattering reports.

"Mr. Reade! They--" began a voice outside, then stopped abruptly.

Tom hustled on his clothing again with a speed that seemed to partake of magic. Then, with Harry close upon his heels, he rushed to the door, jerking it open.

"Just the pair we want!" snarled a voice that proceeded from behind a mask.