"Come now, over you go, unless you prefer to stand there and take your medicine."
"Hold on there a minute. I guess if anybody does the leap for life, it'll be you that does it," shouted a voice behind the two desperate men.
A second dynamite explosion could not have surprised them more. The men wheeled like a flash.
From the shadow of the archway, through which they had just entered, protruded a rifle barrel. The Pony Rider Boys who had also turned sharply at the interruption, observed that the gun barrel had a telescope attachment. Their eyes following further back, observed something else, too.
"Chunky!" gasped the lads in one voice.
Cravath made a move to level his weapon at the boy who had interfered with his plans thus unexpectedly.
"You stop that, now! I've got six bullets in this gun. If you get me excited I may press too hard on the trigger, and—well, maybe you'll think you've stepped into a hornets' nest. Drop those pistols!"
The muzzle of the repeating rifle never wavered. Behind the sights, the eyes of Stacy Brown had contracted into two narrow slits.
The desperadoes hesitated, measuring their chances shrewdly. They must have considered that these were not worth the taking, for they permitted their fingers to relax, the weapons falling to the floor with a clatter.
Chunky lowered his rifle ever so little, and the Pony Riders uttered a yell of triumph.