"Away we go on our wheels, boys," sang Joe; and suiting the action to the word he sprang into his saddle and set out at a lively pace. "Now, Matt Coyle, come on. It would take a better horse than you ever did or ever will own to stop us."
"But a stick thrown into the road might do the business for us," suggested Roy.
"You don't suppose Matt knows that, do you?" said Arthur. "Does anybody see anything that looks as though it might be used for a lookout station?"
Nobody did. There was nothing to be seen but a cultivated field on the right hand, a thickly wooded hill-side on the left, and a farm house in the distance. True there was a high, bald peak a little to the left of the hill over which the road disappeared, but it was all of ten or fifteen miles away, and a man stationed on its summit would have needed a good glass to make us out. At least that was what Joe Wayring said, and then he dismissed all fears of Matt Coyle from his mind, and made a motion with his hand as if to throw open the breech of his pocket rifle, which he had thus far carried in readiness for any emergency that might arise, and remove the cartridge; but, on reflection, he decided to wait a little longer. It was lucky he did so, and that his companions followed his example.
If the Buster band really had a "looking-out place" anywhere within sight of the road I don't know it, but I do know that by taking short cuts through the mountains they managed to reach the highway in advance of us, for when we reached the top of the hill of which I have spoken, and the wheelmen were about to stow the rifles in their cases preparatory to a coast, Matt Coyle and Dave Daily suddenly stepped out of a thicket on one side of the road, and as many more ruffians arose from behind the fence on the other. They were about thirty yards away, and although all except Matt carried guns in their hands, I was relieved to see that there was not a club or stone among them. They supposed that all they had to do was to form across the road, call upon the boys to halt, and they would be obeyed.
"Them's the fellers—the very chaps I've been a-lookin' fur," yelled the squatter, shaking his fists in the air and striking up a war-dance in the middle of the road. "Now I'll have the whole on you, an' there won't be nobody to interfere when I—"
"Full speed, boys," said Joe, in a low tone. "Hold fast to your guns and be ready to stop if anybody gets unhorsed. It's our only chance. Get out of the way," he cried, flourishing his cocked rifle above his head with one hand while he guided me with the other. "Get out of the way or we will run you down. If we strike you, you are dead men."
It never occurred to Matt and Dave to ask each other what would become of the boys themselves if their headlong progress were suddenly stopped, and neither did they linger to try the experiment. The three Columbias fairly whistled through the air; and when Matt saw that his peremptory orders to halt were disregarded, and that we were charging down upon him with apparently irresistible force, he scuttled out of the way with the greatest haste, and Dave Daily, the terrible man who hid in the woods and shot at officers unawares, was not an inch behind him.
"Look out for them pop-guns," he yelled.