e
Jack.

"Stop where you are!" shouted Jack.

The drenched fugitive looked at him and laughed ironically.

Then he dashed ahead, for Jack had drawn a pistol, and was aiming it at
him.

Just as the horse leaped into the opening in the rocks, the young
inventor fired at the bandit.

The ball cut the spot Frank had just evacuated, and striking against the
rocks, exploded there.

Up jumped the young inventor, and he ran along until he arrived opposite
the split rocks.

But he failed to see the fugitive as Frank had gone around a bend in the
opening, and was then hidden from view.

As he could not do anything there, he hastened back to the Terror,
sprang aboard, and started her back the way she came from, at the same
time telling his friends what happened.

Jack made a wide detour, and passed the end of the gorge.

The stream there broadened and became so shallow that he easily drove
the stage through it.

Reaching the other side, he began a search for Frank, but it finally
proved to be in vain.

The shadows of twilight fell when he finally gave up the hunt and headed
for a tiny hamlet near where he was.

It was a place which had built up about a general store, at which the
stage coach, paused which carried passengers from the northern railroads
who wished to make connections with the smaller branch lines dissecting
that portion of the state.

At this place--called Jones' Corners--there was a big surprise in store
for our friends.

It came about when Jack drove the Terror up to the store and quietly
made inquiries of the owner as to whether he had seen a man answering to
Frank James' description about that vicinity that day.

The man told him he had seen such an individual.

CHAPTER XI.
A SUSPECTED PLOT.

The store at which the electric stage paused was a small, dingy place,
used as a grocery, a post-office, a saloon, and, in fact, half a dozen
different kinds of business.

Its owner was a typical Missourian, in raw hide boots, his pants tucked
in the legs, a flannel shirt upon his ample body, a felt hat on his long
hair, and one of his bewhiskered cheeks distended with a huge quid of
tobacco.

When he had eyed the electric machine, and commented upon it at some
length, he finally said:

"Yas, neighbur, I reckon thar wuz sich erchap hyar ez you wuz quizzin me
erbout. It's ergoin' on two hour ergo as he stuck his nose into this ere
place, an' ast me all erbout ther runnin' er that stage-coach