“Who said you could go?” exclaimed the lineman. “You can’t. Go back!”
Bucks stood his ground.
“Do you want to get killed?” thundered Dancing hotly.
“Two are better than one on a job like this,” returned Bucks, without giving way. “Go on, will you?”
With a volley of grumbling objections, Dancing at length directed Bucks to stick close to him, 269 whatever happened, and to fight the best he could in case they were cornered.
Ahead of them the glare of the conflagration lighted the sky and the air was filled with the shouts of the mob surrounding the fighting vigilantes. Only half a block away, men were hurrying up and down Front Street, while the two clambered along the obscure and half-opened street leading to the jail and parallel to the main thoroughfare.
Dancing, to whom every foot of the rocky way was familiar and who could get over obstructions in the dark as well as if it were day, led the way with a celerity that kept his companion breathing fast. Both had long legs, but Dancing in some mysterious way planted his feet with marvellous certainty of effect, while Bucks slipped and floundered over rocks and brush piles and across gullies until they took a short cut through a residence yard and found themselves on the heels of the mob surrounding the burning jail and in the glare of the fire in upper Front Street.
“Stick close, sonny,” muttered the lineman, 270 “we must push through these fellows before they reco’nize us.”
He stooped as he spoke and picked up a piece of hickory––the broken handle of a spike-maul. “Railroad property anyway,” he muttered. “It might come handy. But gum shoes for us now till we are forced. Perhaps we can sneak all the way through.”
Without further ado Dancing, with Bucks on his heels, elbowed his way into the crowd. The outer fringe of this he knew was not dangerous, being made up chiefly of onlookers. But in another minute the two were in the midst of a yelling, swaying mix-up between the aggressive mob and a thin fringe of vigilantes, who, hard-pressed, had abandoned the jail to its fate and were trying to fight their way down town.