If only the door and the bolt would withstand the assault of the first few blows! Silver was coming fast, racing toward the window where the masked man waited. The big stallion clattered close and whinnied shrilly while the men in the hall yelled new suggestions. "He's got a hoss outside. Git around tuh the winder. I hear a hoss. Thar's a hull gang o' them in thar."
In a moment Bryant was thrown across the saddle. The masked man leaped behind him as a shattering blow shivered the door and the wall that supported it.
"Come on, Silver!" the Lone Ranger called.
He couldn't leave the vicinity just yet. There was one thing of which he must make certain. He rode to the man he'd shot. Leaping from the saddle, he found the wounded man quite conscious, but in pain from a bullet in the fleshy part of his thigh. "Not serious," he muttered. "You'll be all right as soon as—"
He broke off with a gasp of surprise. This man's bullet wound was slight, but the man was dying. There was another weapon, a knife of the sort that can be easily thrown. All that showed was the handle, sticking straight out from the back of the stranger's neck.
It took but an instant for the Lone Ranger to visualize what had happened. This fugitive, having fired point-blank at Bryant Cavendish, had raced on foot to reach a clump of trees. Perhaps his horse was waiting there, perhaps a trusted friend. This "friend" or someone else within the shelter of the trees had thrown the knife after the Lone Ranger's shot had dropped the man, probably to seal his lips with death.
Whatever the purpose of the murder, the man on the ground would never talk. It was little short of miraculous that he had lived at all after taking the knife in such a vital place. The Lone Ranger could do nothing. The man slipped into unconsciousness, with death a few seconds away.
Meanwhile the Lone Ranger was in danger.
Yelling, shouting men were charging, some on foot and some on horseback from the rear of the hotel. There was no time for thought or planning. The only important thing right now was escape.
The Lone Ranger leaped, and shouted, "Hi-Yo Silver!"