'Afraid we must,' Polk agreed, with his usual apparent reluctance. 'We'd better be going, Jim.'
'I told you I wasn't in this, Cash,' Nuney said. 'That still goes.'
'But you can't desert now.' Polk's voice was shrill with anxiety. He did not like the job set him. A cold, sinking feeling had settled in his stomach. 'We're trapped and have to fight our way out, every last one of us.'
'Carlos and I don't go for murder, and that is what this is,' Nuney answered. 'This is where we beat it.'
'Not on yore life, you rat!' Chad cried. 'You'll stay with us, dead or alive.'
His revolver jumped out, a fraction of a second before the rifle of Nuney. Swiftly Polk's hands closed on the hairy wrist of Chad. 'For God's sake, don't!' he screamed, flinging his weight on the man's arm to push it down. 'We'll settle this later. Just now we've got to get Stevens.'
Carlos stood beside his friend, an automatic in his fingers. '
'We're not going to rat on you,' Nuney explained. 'We're getting out of the country. What's the sense of getting deeper into trouble? It would be smart for all of you to take it on the lam for Mexico.'
Polk was still struggling to hold the wrist of Chad when Nuney and Carlos backed into the alley and ran.
AS HAL DROVE down the hill from the Hunter place, Arnold gave an exclamation of annoyance.
'I left the rifle we took from Mullins standing in the hall,' he said. 'Clean forgot it when we went to the garage the back way.'
'Hope we won't need it, Ranny,' his friend said. 'What I crave is peace and plenty of it. My idea of heaven just now is a round-the-clock sleep in a comfortable bed.'
They had decided to head north for Tucson, but abruptly Hal changed his mind. Just before he struck the main highway, he caught sight of two men ducking from the pavement to cover back of some bushes on a lawn. Hal swung the wheel to the right and headed in the opposite direction. One of the men was Brick Fenwick.
A bullet struck a back wheel fender and caromed off to lodge in the trunk of a cottonwood. A second missed Arnold's neck by inches.
'Get your head down,' Hal snapped.
'They must have men posted ahead of us,' Arnold said. 'Do we give her the gas and try to run the gantlet?'
On each side of them was a solid block of stores. At the next intersection they could turn right or left and get off the main business street. But if they did this, the road would not take them out of town, since it ran only through the residence district.
Already they could see men racing toward them. Arnold became aware that the car was losing speed rapidly.
'What's the matter?' he asked.
'Engine not getting any gas.' Hal glanced at the register. 'Tank empty.'
He cut to the left and jammed on the hand brake. They flung themselves out of the car and ran down the side street. Halfway down the block were some lots filled with used automobiles. Arnold bolted through the gate to find cover. An old sedan carried a sign chalked on its windshield,' For Sale, $250.' He tried to wrench open the door, but found it locked. They crouched between two lumbering limousines of ancient vintage.
The lots were enclosed by high adobe walls on three sides. A plank fence was the front boundary. Back of the rear wall stood a rooming house which faced the adjoining street. One glance showed that there was no exit except the one through which they had come.
'This looks like one of the better mouse traps,' Hal drawled. 'I hope too many men won't beat a path to the door this morning.'
It was odd, Arnold thought later, that with danger pressing so closely there should jump to his mind a memory of old football games when Hal would drop whimsical remarks as he was being dragged up from the mud with the ball after half the opposing team had tackled him.
By craning forward, Hal could see four or five men gathered around the car at the intersection. Raised voices came to him.
'They ran down this street!' one cried.
'No time for them to reach the next corner,' another answered. 'They must be in the used car lot.'
There was the slap of running feet. Another man joined the group.
'We've got 'em cornered,' the first speaker told him. 'They can't get away.'
A derisive laugh followed. Fenwick, Hal guessed. A moment later he knew he was right. 'If you've got them sewed up so nice, go in and collect them, Ed,' his gibing voice suggested.
The sound of the hill men's voices died down. The concealed men could see them in a huddle, too far away for a revolver to carry accurately. Two men separated from the group and disappeared behind the store buildings. Another left, to go in the opposite direction. The enemy was surrounding them. Polk was probably sending riflemen into the alley opposite the lots. He might have thought, too, of the rooming house, from the upper windows of which the victims could be picked off neatly. Just now there was no indiscriminate firing. No doubt Cash did not want to arouse the town until it was too late for rescuers to save the trapped men. Since he was cautious and sly rather than bold, he would want to finish the job and get away without being recognized.
'We might make a dash across the road for the alley,' Arnold said,' and reach the other end of it before we are cut off.'
Hal shook his head. 'We'd never make it to the alley. That fellow with the rifle standing by our car would cut one of us down at least, maybe both.'
Daylight was driving away the darkness of night, a fact that brought the besieged no comfort. The minutes dragged. It would not be long before the snipers opened on them. The outlaws dared not wait a moment after they were set to attack.
A man was moving up the alley toward them.
'If I hadn't left that Winchester at Hunter's we could pick him off,' Arnold said regretfully.
A rifle's whine broke the silence. The bullet struck one of the limousines. They shifted their positions to get better protection.
'Kindness of the fellow in the alley,' Hal commented, his grin none too cheerful. 'It's like shooting fish in a bathtub.'
'Look!' Arnold cried. 'A fellow in the window.'
Hal's eyes lifted to the upper story of the rooming house back of them. A man with a rifle was standing in an open window, a rifle in his hands. He was not fifty yards from them, and he had a clean shot at his prey. The man was Bill Nuney.
'This is where one of us goes on a long journey,' Hal said.
The crack of the rifle sounded from the window. Hal's astonished eyes met those of his friend. Nuney had not fired at them, but at the man in the alley.
'Get out of there, Chad, or I'll drill you full of holes,' Nuney shouted.
The gunman in the alley shook a fist at him and cursed. 'A rat like I told you,' he shouted back.
'Never mind that now,' Nuney warned. 'Light out, or get plugged.'
Chad fired at the figure in the window and the bullet tore through the woodwork of the frame just above Nuney's head. The answering shot came almost as an echo. Chad dropped the weapon and caught at his leg. He sank down back of a barrel fifteen feet distant from the rifle.
The face and torso of a Mexican showed at a window near the one where Nuney stood. 'My friend Carlos,' the cowboy called to those in the lot below. 'We had a bust-up with the other boys.'
Chad was slowly beating a retreat down the alley. He hung on to his leg and limped as he walked.
'What a break!' Arnold said. 'Never bumped into anything like this before in my life.'
'We'll not forget this, Bill,' Hal promised, raising his voice to be heard. 'When we get out of this, stick around with us till we have talked it over. You and your friend too.'
'Okey! I judge we had better leave town together and separate later,' Nuney laughed. 'Bet you never shook a present off the Christmas Tree more welcome than this one.'
