Malone were
wonderfully fleet horses.

Several miles were thus covered.

Finally, though, the machine drew close to the two riders.

"Halt!" shouted Jack.

Casting a quick glance back the riders obeyed.

So suddenly did they pull up their steeds, that they rose on their
haunches and pawed the air.

The four inmates of the Terror had them covered with their rifles, and
when the horses came down and wheeled around, a shout of chagrin escaped
Timberlake.

"Duped!"

"What do you mean?" asked Jack, in surprise.

"They ain't the James Boys."

"Sure enough. But the horses belong to the bandits."

"Yes; that's how I was deceived. Now I see through it. I've been
tricked. I really chased Jesse and Frank from the tunnel. They put these
men on their horses and hid, while their two men rode off to decoy us
from the spot so they could escape."

Such was really the way it happened.

Jack had stopped the Terror, and now shouted to the two men, who were
part of the James Boys' gang.

"Throw your hands up!"

Both men obeyed.

"Don't fire!" pleaded one of them.

"That depends on how you answer me."

"What do you want to know, sir?"

"You just heard our version of how the James Boys eluded us?"

"We did, sir."

"Is it correct?"

"Yes."

"Are you members of their gang?"

"We are."

"Where have they gone!"

"I refuse to tell you!"

"Your life depends upon it."

"I don't care. I won't betray them."

"Fool! I will count three. If you don't answer, we'll fire!"

"Go ahead!" was the defiant reply.

"One!" exclaimed Jack.

The two bandits did not flinch.

"Two!" sternly cried the inventor.

Still the men stubbornly refused to speak.

"Three!"

A deathly silence ensued for a moment.

Then the weapons in the hands of our friends were discharged.

CHAPTER VI.
SHADOWING A LONE HORSEMAN.

Although there was a tacit understanding among the crew of the Terror to
fire over the heads of the two bandits to frighten them they imagined
that they were to be shot down in cold blood.

It electrified them.

An instant before Jack gave the order to fire they plunged their spurs
into the flanks of the horses.

One animal sprang to the right and the other to the left.

It was done like lightning.

Both steeds were well trained.

Siroc cleared a hedge and wheeling to the right went flying back in the
direction he came from, while Jim Malone went thundering in among some
rocks and vanished.

Both