"Hold Cleaverage! Somebody hold Cleaverage! He's killed Flent."
And then Lance felt the shoving of a palm against his shoulder. Buck was pushing him quietly away, down between the lines of piled commodities. They were running together toward Satan. Back in the room they could hear the sheriff yelling for lights.
"I thought I might just as well knock them lamps over for good measure," Fuson muttered as they ran. "Here's your horse—my pistol's in that holster, Lance. Air ye hurt?"
"No," Lance returned. "Nothin' but my arm. I reckon I burnt it a little. It's only the left one. Thank you. Buck. You've been a true friend to me this night."
And he was away, down the bit of lamplit street that ran so quickly into country road, past outlying cabins already dark, till he struck the first rise of Turkey Track and slacked rein. A moment he turned, looking over his shoulder at the lights.
Upon the instant the Court House bell back there broke out in loud, frightened clamor.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!" Somebody was pulling wildly on the rope 338 to call out the little volunteer fire company. He heard cries, shouts, and then the long wavering halloo that shakes the heart of the village dweller.
"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
Derf's store must be blazing. He wondered dully if they had dragged Flenton's body away from the flames. Hearkening, he suffered Satan to breathe a bit on the rise that would take him to the great boulder where the roads branched, one going up Little Turkey Track, the other leading aside direct to the Big Turkey Track neighborhood.
Suddenly he stiffened in his saddle, cut short a groan wrenched from him by his injury, and listened strainingly. Above the now diminishing noise from the village, he distinguished the sound of hoofs that galloped hard, growing louder with each moment,—the feet of one who pursued him. Looping the bridle rein over the pommel of his saddle horn, he got at the pistol Buck had provided, and thereafter rode warily but as rapidly as he dared, looking back to catch the first glimpse of the shape or shapes which might be following.