There came a sudden sharp rapping at the door against which his broad back leaned. There was Babe Deveril, who had lunged after him. Timber-Wolf, growling savagely, flung himself about, for the second ignoring the girl and facing the door. Deveril, just without, heard the bolt shot home. And then he heard the second, the sinister sound. A revolver shot, muffled by the four walls of a room. And he heard Timber-Wolf, whose back had been turned to Lynette Brooke and the gun upon the table, curse deep down in his throat, and heard almost simultaneously the scraping of the heavy boots and the crashing fall of the big body. Deveril shook fiercely at the door. Then he turned and ran back down the hall, meaning to go through the room he had just quitted and on through so as to come to Lynette's room by the rear.
But in the sitting-room Billy Winch, teetering on his one foot, grasped him by the arm, demanding to know what had happened. Deveril savagely shook him off, and Winch, raising the echoes with a shrilling voice, toppled over and fell. But little time had been wasted, and yet, before Deveril could free himself and run on, Lynette Brooke ran in upon him. Her eyes were wild and staring; in her hand was her revolver, so lately fired that the last wisp of smoke had not cleared from the barrel.
"Babe Deveril," she gasped. "They are after me!"
It was Sheriff Taggart who was after her. He was almost at her heels, shouting:
"Stop! In the name of the law! You are under arrest for killing Bruce Standing...."
Babe Deveril carried no weapon upon him. And he saw Taggart's pistols dragging at his belt, the heavy forty-fives which, as sheriff, he was entitled to carry openly. Taggart's hands were almost upon her.
Deveril did the one thing. He caught at the gun in Lynette's hand and wrenched it free, and, having no time for accurate aim, did not fire, but hurled the revolver itself, with all of his might, full into Taggart's face. And Taggart, as though a thunderbolt had struck him, went down, with a steel barrel driven against his skull, near the temple, and lay a crumpled, still heap.
"The house is full of Taggart's friends!" Deveril cried sharply, warning her and, at the same time, thinking for himself.
But already she was running again. She ran out into the road; but there the brisk-burning bonfires made night into day. She dodged back into the shadow cast by the corner of the house, and ran about to the rear. Deveril hesitated only an instant; men were already rushing in from the room where they had been drinking. He followed her through the door, and here again he paused. Men were already stooping over the sheriff; he heard one cry out the single word, "Dead!" His brain caught fire. The girl had killed Timber Wolf; he had killed Jim Taggart. He and she were fugitives. He followed her again into the shadows, running to the back of the house.
And as he ran one thing angered him: He had won three thousand dollars from Bruce Standing, and that three thousand dollars was at this moment in Standing's pocket. And being Babe Deveril, who dared at least as far as most men dare, he meant to have what fortune allowed him.