“If you are going after him, so am I,” returned the senator’s son, sturdily. “Maybe it was only a bluff about shooting after all.”
While running along the bridge Dave’s eyes fell on a short steel bar left there by one of the workmen. He stopped just long enough to pick the bar up, and then went after Porton with all the speed at his command.
It was a perilous chase, for in many places the flooring of the big bridge was still missing and they had to leap from girder to girder of the steel structure.
“Stop, I tell you!” yelled Ward Porton once more, when Dave was within ten yards of him. And then he turned squarely around and our hero and Roger saw the glint of a pistol as the rascal pointed it toward them.
“He is armed!” cried Roger, and now there was a note of fear in his voice, and not without reason.
“Get behind the steel work,” ordered Dave, and lost no time in dodging partly out of sight. As he moved, however, he launched forth the steel bar he had picked up.
More by good luck than anything else the bar sped true to its mark. It struck Ward Porton in the forearm, the hand of which was holding the pistol. In another instant the weapon was clattering down through the steel work of the bridge to the river far below.
“Hurrah, Dave! you’ve disarmed him!” cried Roger.
For the instant Ward Porton seemed dazed by the sudden turn of affairs. Evidently, however, the blow from the steel bar had not hurt him much, for, turning quickly, he continued his flight along the bridge. Dave and Roger lost no time in following him.