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commenced to growl and threaten, and presently again hurled himself against the

door.

Instantly Byrne wheeled and fired a single shot into the arc lamp, the shattered

carbon rattled to the table with fragments of the globe, and Byrne stepped quickly

to one side. The door flew open and Sergeant Flannagan dove headlong into the

darkened room. A foot shot out from behind the opened door, and Flannagan,

striking it, sprawled upon his face amidst the legs of the literary lights who held

dog-eared magazines rightside up or upside down, as they chanced to have

picked them up.

Simultaneously Billy Byrne and Bridge dodged through the open doorway,

banged the door to behind them, and sped across the barroom toward the street.

As Flannagan shot into their midst the men at the table leaped to their feet and

bolted for the doorway; but the detective was up and after them so quickly that

only two succeeded in getting out of the room. One of these generously slammed

the door in the faces of his fellows, and there they pulled and hauled at each

other until Flannagan was among them.

In the pitch darkness he could recognize no one; but to be on the safe side he hit

out promiscuously until he had driven them all from the door, then he stood with

his back toward it--the inmates of the room his prisoners.

Thus he remained for a moment threatening to shoot at the first sound of

movement in the room, and then he opened the door again, and stepping just

outside ordered the prisoners to file out one at a time.

As each man passed him Flannagan scrutinized his face, and it was not until

they had all emerged and he had reentered the room with a light that he

discovered that once again his quarry had eluded him. Detective Sergeant

Flannagan was peeved.

The sun smote down upon a dusty road. A heat-haze lay upon the arid land that

stretched away upon either hand toward gray-brown hills. A little adobe hut,

backed by a few squalid outbuildings, stood out, a screaming high-light in its

coat of whitewash, against a background that was garish with light.

Two men plodded along the road. Their coats were off, the brims of their tattered

hats were pulled down over eyes closed to mere slits against sun and dust.

One of the men, glancing up at the distant hut, broke into verse:

Yet then the sun was shining down, a-blazing on the little town, A mile or so

'way down the track a-dancing in the sun. But somehow, as I waited there,

194

The Mucker