“You all right, Nell?” asked Fraser quickly of the young woman who had opened the door, and upon her affirmative reply he added: “Everybody alive and kicking? Nobody get a pill?”
“I'm all right for one,” returned Larry. “But we had better get out of this passage. I notice our friends the enemy are sending their cards through the door after us right anxious.”
As he spoke a bullet tore a jagged splinter from a panel and buried itself in the ceiling. A second and a third followed.
“That's c'rect. We'd better be 'Not at home' when they call. Eh, Nell?”
Steve put an arm affectionately round the waist of the young woman who had come in such timely fashion to their aid and ran through the passage with her to the room beyond, Neill following with the prisoner.
“You're wounded, Steve,” the young woman cried.
He shrugged. “Scratch in the hand. Got it when I arrested him. Had to shoot his trigger finger off.”
“But I must see to it.”
“Not now; wait till we're out of the woods.” He turned to his friend: “Nell, let me introduce to you Mr. Neill, from the Panhandle. Mr. Neill, this is my sister. I don't know how come she to drop down behind us like an angel from heaven, but that's a story will wait. The thing we got to do right now is to light a shuck out of here.”
His friend nodded, listening to the sound of blows battering the outer door. “They'll have it down in another minute. We've got to burn the wind seven ways for Sunday.”