re suddenly stepped forth from the
building and instantly ran across the street and lost itself in the
shifting, jostling crowd that was half-disclosed, half-concealed by
the broken shadows of the moonlit trees.

Steele Weir proceeded to a spot near the office and halted. His first
impulse to rush after Sorenson had been promptly suppressed, as cooler
judgment ruled. To seek his quarry in that throng would be labor
wasted, while to reveal his identity would be to court a disastrous
interference with the business at hand. From where he stood he should
much better be able to see Sorenson when he did emerge, unless he
chose to remain in the crowd or steal away at the rear of the court
house yard, a chance Weir must take.

Five minutes passed. The restless, talkative Mexicans continued to
swarm and buzz with excitement, ceaselessly moving about, forming and
reforming in groups, agitatedly repeating newer and wilder rumors
concerning events. Despite Weir's intent watch for Sorenson, the
engineer could not but observe the mob's manifestations, observe them
with sardonic humor. For their ebullition of the present would be
nothing to what it would be if they learned he stood across the
street, uncaged, unfettered, free and armed, a "gun-man" loose instead
of a "gun-man" in jail.

All at once Weir noted out of the tail of his eye a slight stir among
a number of horses standing with reins a-trail before a store a little
way down the street. The horses were partly in the light, partly in
the shadow, so that all he could see was that one or two of them had
jerked aside quickly, then resumed their listless postures.

He was about to withdraw his eyes when he saw a man swing upon the
back of one of them and start off at an easy canter. Weir sprang
towards the spot at a run. That big figure could only be Sorenson's,
for no Mexican he had ever seen in San Mateo could match it. And the
plan of escape showed the other's craft in an emergency; gradually
working his way through the crowd he had at last gained the protective
shadow of the building on that side of the street and slipped along in
it until he reached the horses.

Doubtless the man had conceived the plan at the instant he had stepped
from his office, sweeping the street by one gauging look. With the
whole town assembled at the court house, his departure was little
likely to be noted by the Mexicans, while Madden and Weir would never
suspect him of riding off on a horse, o