The two men rode boldly up toward the house. It seemed deserted. Weeds were growing around the door stoop, and crowding thickly up to the front windows. A spider’s silver web gleamed from casing to panel of the warped and weather stained door. The windows were blurred with the tricklings of rain through seasons of dust. Everything appeared unkempt, forlorn, desolate.
There was a sound from the rear. It carried a stealthy significance. A man leaped from the protection of the cabin and was seen running toward the barn. He was heavily armed.
“Stop that, Black!” yelled Langford, authoritatively. “We are going to take you, dead or alive—you’d better give yourself up! It will be better for you!”
The man answered nothing.
“Wing him with your rifle, Jim, before he gets to the barn,” said Paul, quickly.
The shot went wild. Black wrenched the door open, sprang upon the already bridled horse, and made a bold dash for the farther woods—and not in the direction where determined men waited in ambush. What did it mean? As his horse cleared the stable, he turned and shot a vindictive challenge to meet his pursuers.
“You won’t take me alive—and dead, I won’t go alone!”
He plunged forward in a northerly direction. Dimly he could be seen through the underbrush; but plainly could be heard the crackling of branches and the snapping of twigs as his horse whipped through the low lying foliage. Was there, then, another way to the mainland—other than the one over which Johnson and Baker kept guard? How could it be? How Langford longed for his good rifle and its carrying power. But he knew how to use a pistol, too. Both men sent menacing shots after the fugitive. Langford could not account for the strange direction. The only solution was that Black was leading his pursuers a chase through the woods, hoping to decoy them so deeply into the interior that he might, turning suddenly and straightly, gain time for his desperate sprint across the exposed stretch of sand. If this were true, Baker and Johnson would take care of him there.
Black returned the fire vengefully. A bullet scraped his horse’s flank. His hat was shot from his head. He turned savagely in his saddle with a yell of defiance.
“You’ll never take me alive!”