Jack Wright and His Electric Stage Part 10

A smothered cry of alarm escaped Mrs. Samuels.

"I've seen them!" gasped the officer.

"Where?" demanded Jack, quickly.

"Both were here. She warned them. They got down in the cellar. I found a tunnel there, leading over to that timber. They had gone through.

Jesse's horse, Siroc, and Frank's horse, Jim Malone, must have been tethered there, for they mounted and dashed away."

"Get aboard, and we'll chase them."

"You shall not go!" hissed the woman.

She slammed the door shut, and put her back against it, a look of fierce determination upon her face.

It was clear that she designed to delay them so as to give her fugitive sons as long a lead as possible.

Jack saw through her scheme.

"Get away from there! he cried, sternly.

"You can't leave this house!" she shrieked.

"I see through your plan."

"Stand back, or I'll brain you with this!"

She had been holding her hand behind her back.

As she now brought it into view, they saw that she held a hatchet with a keen, glittering edge.

"This way, Mr. Wright!" cried Timberlake.

And he dove headfirst through a window.

Jack started to follow him, when the woman rushed after him with the hatchet upraised.

There was no such emotion as fear in the mother of the Missouri bandits, and she had bred her ferocity and evil will into her two detestable children.

Jack's life was in danger, for she could have dealt him a death blow with the weapon before he could get out the window after the sheriff.

He therefore turned upon her.

The young inventor was noted for his enormous strength.

Avoiding an ugly blow she aimed at his head by nimbly leaping aside, he seized the hatchet before she could raise it again and made an effort to take it away from her.

She was wonderfully strong in her single arm.

In fact, the strength she lost with the arm which had been blown off seemed to have concentrated in this remaining arm.

Jack found it no easy matter to get the weapon, for she held on to it with great persistence, and exerted every device to delay him as long as possible.

"You shall not have it!" she raved as she struggled.

"Let up!" cried Jack, losing patience. "I don't want to use you roughly on account of your s.e.x and crippled condition. But I'll have to do it."

He thereupon tore the hatchet from her hand.

Flinging it into the next room, he saw her spring toward him, and make an effort to grapple him.

Struggling with women was very distasteful to Jack.

He therefore avoided her and rushed out the door.

She ran after him screaming and threatening, but he kept out of her reach and got upon the stage.

The sheriff was already aboard.

Jack sent the Terror flying along the road.

In a few moments she was out of reach of the woman.

There was a door in the forward part of the vehicle beside Jack, and Tim and Fritz now opened it.

"Gee whiz," chuckled the old sailor. "She wuz ther most piratical craft in petticoats wot I ever seen!"

"I don't blame her for trying to protect her sons."

"Yah; but she vos delay us!" growled Fritz.

"Only a few moments."

"There they go now!" cried Timberlake.

He pointed up the road at two flying hors.e.m.e.n.

They were so far away that their figures could hardly be distinguished, and their steeds were going like the wind.

"What a magnificent black horse," commented Jack.

"That's Siroc," informed the sheriff, "Jesse's horse."

"We'll overhaul them though."

"Let her fly if you wish to succeed."

"Are you sure they were the James Boys?"

"Certain. I did not get very near them, but noticed that one wore a heavy beard and the other a mustache. They had on riding boots, with the legs of their pants tucked in the tops, flannel s.h.i.+rts and soft felt hats, while around their waists were buckled cartridge belts into which were thrust a knife and brace of revolvers a piece."