With his words came the sound of the door snapping back against the wall, the reports of Tommy's rifle and Hampton's pumping hot lead after two racing forms.
"They'll get away!" shouted Hampton, a sudden red rage upon him. "Curse it! It's too dark——"
Then Tommy gave over shooting and yelled to Lee to hold his fire. For instead of two there were three flying forms, three fast-racing, blurring, shadowy shapes merging with the night. Pollock Hampton, his rifle clubbed in his hand, was running with a college sprinter's speed after Quinnion and Shorty, calling breathlessly:
"Look out, they'll get away!"
Once Quinnion stopped to shoot back. The hissing lead went wide of the pursuer and he gave over firing and settled down to good, hard running, disappearing from Hampton's staring eyes. But Shorty was still to be seen, running heavily.
"Don't shoot, Bud!" cried Tommy again as two figures ran out of the cabin. "Hampton's out there—the crazy fool——"
"Hampton, come back!" shouted Lee, running after him.
But Hampton was gaining on the heavy-set Shorty and had no thought of coming back. Nor a thought of anything in all the wide world just then but overtaking the flying figure in front of him. Shorty stumbled over a fallen log and rose, cursing and calling:
"Chris! Lend a hand."
That little chance of an uprooted tree saved Hampton's life that night. Shorty, falling, had dropped his gun and hurt his knee. For a moment he groped wildly for the lost rifle, then ran on without it. Hampton cleared the log, and with a yell rather befitting a victorious savage than the young man whom Mrs. Langworthy hoped to call her son, threw his long arms about Shorty's neck.