The Big-Town Round-Up Part 19

"When I get you right I'll croak you. By G.o.d, I will," swore the gang leader savagely, nursing his battered head. "No big stiff from the bushes can run anything over on me."

"I believe you," retorted Clay easily. "That is, I believe you're tellin' me yore intentions straight. There's no news in that to write home about. But you'd better make that _if_ instead of _when_. This is three cracks you've had at me and I'm still a right healthy rube."

"Don't bank on fool luck any more. I'll get you sure," cried Durand sourly.

The gorge of the Arizonan rose. "Mebbeso. You're a dirty dog, Jerry Durand. From the beginning you were a rotten fighter--in the ring and out of it. You and yore strong-arm men! Do you think I'm afraid of you because you surround yoreself with dips and yeggmen and hop-nuts, all sc.u.m of the gutter and filth of the earth? Where I come from men fight clean and out in the open. They'd stomp you out like a rattlesnake."

Clay moved back to the door and looked around from one to another, a scorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats--that's what you are, vermin that feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All you can do is skulk behind cover to take a man when he ain't lookin'."

He whipped open the door, stepped out, closed it, and took the key from his pocket. A moment, and he had turned the lock.

From within there came a rush that shook the panels. Clay was already busy searching for Kitty. He tore open door after door, calling her loudly by name. Even in the darkness he could see that the rooms were empty of furniture.

There was a crash of splintering panels, the sound of a bursting lock.

Almost as though it were an echo of it came a heavy pounding upon the street door. Clay guessed that the thirty minutes were up and that the Runt was bringing the police. He dived back into one of the empty rooms just in time to miss a rush of men pouring along the pa.s.sage to the stairs.

Cut off from the street, Clay took to the roof again. It would not do for him to be caught in the house by the police. He climbed the ladder, pushed his way through the trapdoor opening, and breathed deeply of the night air.

But he had no time to lose. Already he could hear the trampling of feet up the stairs to the second story.

Lightly he vaulted the wall and came to the roof door leading down to number 123. He found it latched.

The eaves of the roof projected so far that he could not from there get a hold on the window casings below. He made a vain circuit of the roof, then pa.s.sed to the next house.

Again he was out of luck. The tenants had made safe the entrance against prowlers of the night. He knew that at any moment now the police might appear in pursuit of him. There was no time to lose.

He crossed to the last house in the block--and found himself barred out. As he rose from his knees he heard the voices of men clambering through the scuttle to the roof. At the same time he saw that which brought him to instant action. It was a rope clothes-line which ran from post to post, angling from one corner of the building to another and back to the opposite one.

No man in Manhattan's millions knew the value of a rope or could handle one more expertly than this cattleman. His knife was open before he had reached the nearest post. One strong slash of the blade severed it. In six long strides he was at the second post unwinding the line.

He used his knife a second time at the third post.

Through the darkness he could see the dim forms of men stopping to examine the scuttle. Then voices came dear to him in the still night.

"If he reached the roof we've got him."

"Unless he found an open trap," a second answered.

With deft motions Clay worked swiftly. He was fastening the rope to the chimney of the house. Every instant he expected to hear a voice raised in excited discovery of him crouched in the shadows. But his fingers were as sure and as steady as though he had minutes before him instead of seconds.

"There's the guy--over by the chimney."

Clay threw the slack of the line from the roof. He had no time to test the strength of the rope nor its length. As the police rushed him he slid over the edge and began to lower himself hand under hand.

Would they cut the rope? Or would they take pot shots at him. He would know soon enough.

The wide eaves protected him. A man would have to hang out from the wall above the ledge to see him.

Clay's eyes were on the gutter above while he jerked his way down a foot at a time. A face and part of a body swung out into sight.

"We've got yuh. Come back or I'll shoot," a voice called down.

A revolver showed against the black sky.

The man from Arizona did not answer and did not stop. He knew that shooting from above is an art that few men have acquired.

A bullet sang past his ear just as he swung in and crouched on the window-sill. Another one hit the bricks close to his head.

The firing stopped. A pair of uniformed legs appeared dangling from the eaves. A body and a head followed these. They began to descend jerkily.

Clay took a turn at the gun-play. He fired his revolver into the air.

The spasmodic jerking of the blue legs abruptly ceased.

"He's got a gun!" the man in the air called up to those above.

The fact was obvious. It could not be denied.

"Yuh'd better give up quietly. We're bound to get yuh," an officer shouted from the roof by way of parley.

The cattleman did not answer except by the smas.h.i.+ng of gla.s.s. He had forced his way into two houses within the past hour. He was now busy breaking into a third. The window had not yielded to pressure.

Therefore he was knocking out the gla.s.s with the b.u.t.t of his revolver.

He crawled through the opening just as some one sat up in bed with a frightened exclamation.

"Who--is--s--s--s it?" a masculine voice asked, teeth chattering.

Clay had no time to gratify idle curiosity. He ran through the room, reached the head of the stairs, and went down on the banister to the first floor. He fled back to the rear of the house and stole out by the kitchen door.

The darkness of the alley swallowed him, but he could still hear the shouts of the men on thereof and answering ones from new arrivals below.

Five minutes later he was on board a street car. He was not at all particular as to its destination. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

This neighborhood was getting entirely too active for him.

CHAPTER XV

THE GANGMAN SEES RED

Exactly thirty minutes after Clay had left him to break into the house, Johnnie lifted his voice in a loud wail for the police. He had read somewhere that one can never find an officer when he is wanted, but the Bull-of-Bashan roar of the cowpuncher brought them running from all directions.

Out of the confused explanations of the range-rider the first policeman to reach him got two lucid statements.

"They're white-slavin' a straight girl. This busher says his pal went in to rescue her half an hour ago and hasn't showed up since," he told his mates.

With Johnnie bringing up the rear they made a noisy attack on the front door of Number 121. Almost immediately it was opened from the inside.

Four men had come down the stairs in a headlong rush to cut off the escape of one who had outwitted and taunted them.

Those who wanted to get in and those who wanted to get out all tried to talk at once, but as soon as the police recognized Jerry Durand they gave him the floor.