The deafening crash of revolvers cut him short, as, without warning, the gunmen fired. The bullets tore through the partly opened door, and a shower of splinters fell on Lennox.
“Get him, fellows! Get the——” cursed the spokesman.
“At yore risk, men!” called out the unknown. He threw the door wide and began shooting with a rapidity that set the mining engineer, wounded and terrified though he was, marveling vaguely.
The battle ended as suddenly as it had begun. A deep silence followed. Soon Lennox heard his deliverer moving through the dark interior and got a glimpse of him as he walked out into the moonlight. He returned presently and halted in the gloom.
“You hurt bad?” he asked. He spoke calmly, his voice pleasingly low.
“My leg is broken,” said Lennox. “I don’t know that I can ever repay you for saving my life, friend.”
“I ain’t takin’ pay for savin’ a man’s life. I know what it is to be a mouse with the cat after it. I’ll fix up yore leg the best I kin in the dark. ’Tain’t safe to make a light. You got to have a doctor, I reckon.”
“Not from Geerusalem. It would be signing my own death warrant. Quintell and his gang are after me.”
“Huh! So, that’s who they were, eh? Purty hard-boiled bunch, that. Now let’s see that busted leg.”
Kneeling on the floor beside Lennox, he began bandaging above and below the wound to stop the flow of blood. He worked in the dark dexterously, tearing long strips of cloth and binding them tightly around the fractured limb. At the end of ten minutes he rose to his feet and lit a cigarette and stood for a moment at the door, listening.