"Vance," she said, "there's trouble starting."

"Somebody shooting at a target," he answered.

As if to mock him, he had no sooner spoken than a dozen voices yelled
down the street in a wailing chorus cut short by the rapid chattering of
revolvers. Vance ran to the window. Just below the hotel the street made
an elbow-turn for no particular reason except that the original cattle-
trail had made exactly the same turn before Garrison City was built.
Toward the corner ran the hubbub at the pace of a running horse. Shouts,
shrill, trailing curses, and the muffled beat of hoofs in the dust. A
rider plunged into view now, his horse leaning far in to take the sharp
angle, and the dust skidding out and away from his sliding hoofs. The
rider gave easily and gracefully to the wrench of his mount.

And he seemed to have a perfect trust in his horse, for he rode with the
reins hanging over the horns of his saddle. His hands were occupied by a
pair of revolvers, and he was turned in the saddle.

The head of the pursuing crowd lurched around the elbow-turn; fire spat
twice from the mouth of each gun. Two men dropped, one rolling over and
over in the dust, and the other sitting down and clasping his leg in a
ludicrous fashion. But the crowd was checked and fell back.

By this time the racing horse of the fugitive had carried him close to
the hotel, and now he faced the front, a handsome fellow with long black
hair blowing about his face. He wore a black silk shirt which accentuated
the pallor of his face and the flaring crimson of his bandanna. And he
laughed joyously, and the watchers from the hotel window heard him call:
"Go it, Mary. Feed 'em dust, girl!"