"That's bad," said Bill slowly.
"It's awful! They'll surely shoot him before I can get the police here!"
Bill hobbled back toward the shelter of the bushes with Dorothy's arm about his waist.
"Some break!" he said disgustedly, as he sank to the ground. "I'm out of the running and you can't hold up that bunch single handed--"
"I can try it though, Bill."
"Not if I have anything to say, you won't. There are too many of 'em--it's impossible. But what we're going to do now, I haven't the slightest idea!"
Chapter XVII
THE LOENING
"One thing is clear--" said Dorothy firmly--"and that is, we can't let Michael Conway be butchered by that band of cut-throats. He saved our lives--we've got to save his."
Bill, his head in his hands, did not reply.
"If you were only in better shape so I could get those handcuffs off--and if there weren't so many of them in the house," she went on, speaking her thoughts aloud, "one of us might be able to hold them up from the window while the other went round through the door and took their guns away. But we can't afford to wait till you can walk alone and I can free your hands. What's to become of Mr. Conway, in the meantime? Oh, Bill, you're generally so fertile with ideas--can't you think of any thing?"