nning to the bank, peered in the big front window, and gone
flying to spread the alarm.

Outside a shot and then another shattered the sultry stillness of the
day. The man left on guard ran to the door and looked out. An upper
window down the street was open, and from it a man with a rifle was
firing at the outlaw left in charge of the horses.

The wrangler had taken refuge behind a bulwark of horseflesh, and was
returning the fire.

"Hurry the boys, Brad! Hell's broke loose!" he called to his companion.

The town was alarmed and buzzing like a hornet's nest. Soon they would
feel the sting of the swarm unless they beat an immediate retreat. One
sweep of his eyes told the bandy-legged fellow as much. He could hear
voices crying the alarm, could see men running to and fro farther down
the street. Even in the second he stood there a revolver began potting
at him.

"Back in a moment," he cried to the wrangler, and disappeared within to
shout an urgent warning to the looters.

Three men came up from the vault, each carrying a sack. The teller was
pushed into the street first, and the rest followed. A scattering fire
began to converge at once upon them. The roan with the white stockings
showed a red ridge across its flank where a bullet had furrowed a path.

The teller dropped, wounded by his friends. Two of the robbers loaded
the horses, while the others answered the townsmen. In the inevitable
delay of getting started, every moment seemed an hour to the harassed
outlaws.

But at last they were in the saddle and galloping down the street,
firing right and left as they went. At the next street crossing two men,
one fat and the other lean, came running, revolvers in hands, to
intercept them. They were too late. Before they reached the corner the
outlaws had galloped past in a cloud of white dust, still flinging
bullets at the invisible they were escaping.

The big lean cow-puncher stopped with an oath as the riders disappeared.
"Nothing doing, Budd," he called to the fat man. "The show's moved on to
a new stand."

Jim Budd, puffing heavily and glistening with perspiration, nodded the
answer he could not speak. Presently he got out what he wanted to say.

"Notice that leading hawss on the nigh side, Slim?" he asked.

"So you noticed it, too, Jim. I could swear to that roan with the four
stockings. It's the hawss Mr. Larrabie Keller mavericks around on, durn
his forsaken hide! And the man on it wore a polka-dot ban