An officer rushed up.
"Turn that flivver around in the middle of the road and jump out quick. That will stop them. Let 'em smash it up if necessary. It isn't worth more than ten dollars."
While a half-dozen men were dragging the car into position as a barricade, Mrs. Crow exclaimed to her husband:
"That old skinflint! He said it was cheap at fifty dollars. Thank goodness, I—"
But Anderson was hustling her out of the car. In the distance the headlights of the bandits' car burst into view as it swung around a bend in the road.
Soldiers everywhere! They seemed to have sprung out of the ground. On came the big car, thundering into the trap. Bugle-calls sounded; a couple of guns blazed into the air as the car flew past the outposts, lights flared suddenly in the path of bewildered occupants, and loud imperative commands rang out on the air.
Into the gantlet of guns the big car rushed. The man at the wheel bent low and took the reckless chance of getting through.
Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the dauntless abandoned flivver. He jerked frantically at the brakes.