Men rushed out into the yards, horsemen went scurrying about, and down came the stockade gate.
But Harmon and his men rode boldly down to the gate, and began to assail it with axes.
While Frank Reade, Jr., kept the Steam Man on an elevation near, from which he, with Barney and Pomp, covered the work of invasion by a hot fire with their Winchesters.
The cowboys could not get upon the stockade to fire at the assailants for this reason.
Harmon’s men therefore worked with perfect immunity.
No more favorable time for an attack could have been chosen.
There were but few of the cowboys in the ranch, and these were picked off by the fire from the Steam Man as fast as they appeared on the stockade.
With lusty cries the vigilants chopped through the timbers of the gate.
In a remarkably brief time a hole was cut through and the gate raised.
The Steam Man rushed into the yard, and in less than ten minutes every cowboy in the place was a prisoner, and Ranch V. was captured.