'em up and ship 'em into Paloma?"

"Fire off your revolver two or three times," suggested Tom, who had
caught a faint, far away sound of an automobile. "That may bring a
machine over here."

"You shoot, Rafe," urge Moore. "I'll want to keep my weapon handy for
this crooked card-sharp."

Rafe obligingly emptied one of his revolvers into the air. From a
distance came the honk of an automobile horn, as though in answer to
the signal shots. Soon the noise of an automobile engine became more
distinct. Finally the body of a large car loomed up in the darkness. A
few shouts brought the car to the spot.

"This you, Mr. Reade?" called the joy voice of Superintendent Hawkins.
"And Hazelton, safe, also?"

All five seats in this car were occupied. Six more men had to be crowded
in somehow, after Jim Duff had been tied with his hands behind him. Most
of them had to stand.

"Back to Paloma, as fast as you can go with safety," ordered Mr.
Hawkins, as soon as all were inside. "Gracious, but there'll be a joyful
demonstration back in camp as soon as the good word is received."

As the car sped along over the desert the story was told of how the
pursuit had been made.

It was Mr. Hawkins who had tried to wire from camp into town, calling
for cars and posses to go in pursuit of the raiders.

As Tom had imagined at the outset, the raiders had cut the railroad
telegraph wire. Discovering this, Mr. Hawkins had leaped on to the bare
back of a horse at camp and had covered the distance at a gallop.

Men had been quickly rounded up within the very few minutes that were
needed in getting the cars out and ready to run. There were hundreds of
men in Paloma who had grown to despise Duff and all the evil crew behind
the gambler.

From the outset the leaders of the posse, on hearing, of the direction
first taken by the fleeing raiders, had calculated on the gully as the
probable place of halting.

While the posse was still on the way out to the gully, and at some
distance away, the sound of Ashby's discharging gun had reached them.
Reasoning that the raiders would probably place a guard only on the town
end of the gully, the posse had made a wide detour, so as to approach
the gully from the westward. Leaving the cars at a considerable
distance, the pursuers, with Mr. Hawkins at their head, had made quick
time on foot.

In the fighting that had followed five men of the posse had been hit,
though none dangerously. These wounded men, af