whirled aloft an axe. We were outside now, but the pistol blazed
before the blade came down, and a man beside me caught at a veranda pillar
with a cry just as the door banged to.

"It's Pete of the shovel gang!" somebody said. "It was Hemlock Jim who
shot him. Where's the man with the axe to chop one of these pillars for a
battering-ram? Roll round here, railroad builders!"

A roar of angry voices broke out, and it was evident that popular sympathy
was on the reformers' side, while my blood was up. Pete of the shovel
gang, a quiet, inoffensive man, sat limply on the veranda, with the blood
trickling from his shoulder, and there was the insult to the girl to be
avenged; while, if more were needed, somebody hurled opprobrious epithets
at us from an upper window. I wrenched the axe from its owner--and he
resisted stubbornly--whirled it round my shoulder, and there was another
roar when after a shower of splinters the stout post yielded. It was torn
loose from the rafters, swung backward by sinewy arms, and driven crashing
against the saloon door, one panel of which went in before it. Twice
again, while another pistol-shot rang out, we plied the ram, and then
followed it pell-mell across the threshold, where we went down in a heap
amid the wreckage of the door, though I had sense enough left to remove
Hemlock's smoking revolver which lay close by, just where he had dropped
it on the floor. He evidently had not expected this kind of attack and
suffered for his ignorance. We could not see him, but a breathless voice
implored somebody to "Give them blame deadbeats socks!" and there was
evidently need for prompt action, because the rest of our opponents had
entrenched themselves behind the bar, which was freely strengthened by
chairs and tables; also, as we picked ourselves up, an invisible man
behind the barricade called out in warning:

"Stop right there. Two of us have guns!"

"Will you come out, and give up Hemlock Jim?" asked Johnston, while half a
dozen men who had found strangely assorted weapons gathered alert and
eager behind him, a little in advance of the rest, and Lee panted among
them with the blood running down his face.

"If you want him you've got to lick us first!" was the answer. "We don't
back down on a partner. But I guess he's hardly worth the trouble, for
he's looking very sick--your blank battering-ram took him in the
stummick."

"One minute in which to change your mind!" said Johnston, holding up h