The vigilante leaders saw impending, in the Front Street fire, the ruin of their business property. There were no longer men enough left to fight the flames and guard the fire-fighters. A point had been reached in which life and property were no longer taken into account, and efforts to 300 restore law and order were facing complete failure. It was then that the most radical of all measures, the last resort of organized society in its resolve to defend itself, was discussed. The vigilantes, as well as the railroad men, now realized that but one measure remained for saving Medicine Bend and that was the extermination of the outlaws themselves.
CHAPTER XXIV
The men in the barricade were lined up for orders. Ammunition was passed and volunteers were called to form a charging party. The vigilantes formed in the glare of the burning shops.
From the head-quarters of the rioters in Front Street came scattering shots and cries as a huge volume of sparks shot up into the black sky. Ten men under Hawk and ten under Dancing made the supporting party for the vigilantes, who asked only that a line of retreat be kept open. This Stanley had undertaken to provide. Atkinson, making a wide détour back of the station, led his men down the railroad tracks and, reaching a point where concealment was no longer possible, double-quicked up Fort Street and charged with his party across the little park.
They had already been seen. A line of men, posted behind the places that line Front Street at that point, opened fire. It was the worst possible 302 answer to make to men in the temper of the scattered line that swept up the street in the glare of the burning buildings. Wounded men dropped out of the charge, but those that went on carried with them a more implacable determination. Re-forming their line under cover of the cedars at the corner of Fort Street, they directed an effective fire into the dance halls adjoining, and the rioters hiding within scurried from them like rats.
But the vigilantes were intent first of all on capturing and burning the hall known as the Three Horses, and the rioters rallied to its defence. As the place was assailed, the doors were barred and a sharp fire was poured through the windows. The assailants were driven back. Bill Dancing, heated and stubborn, refused to retreat and, picking up a sledge dropped by a fleeing vigilante, attacked the barred doors single-handed.
The street, swept by the bullets of the fray, rang with the splitting blows of the heavy hammer, as the lineman, his long hair flying from his forehead, swung at the thick panels. Within, the gamblers tried to shoot him from the windows, 303 but he stood close and his friends kept up a constant supporting fire that drove the defenders back.
From above they hurled chairs and tables down on Dancing, but his head seemed furniture-proof, and scorning to waste time in dodging he hammered away, undaunted, until he splintered the panels and the stout lock-stiles gave. The vigilantes, running up, tore through the door chains with crowbars and rushed the building.