Jack Wright and His Electric Stage Part 32

Loaded with the same terrible explosive compound that he put in the bullets he used, they possessed ten times the power that ordinary dynamite sh.e.l.ls have.

Armed with these awful missiles, he was ready to go back and single-handed engage in a fight with the whole gang.

Jack's courage and perseverance were of a high order.

He deposited the basket in a metal, bullet-proof box on the front platform, and seating himself, seized the wheel.

"I've got explosives enough here to blow the whole crew to fragments,"

he muttered. "And what is more, I'll do it too, in order to wrest my friends from their clutches!"

Back along the road rolled the Terror.

The moon now rose in the sky.

In a few minutes Jack neared the hut.

Stopping the electric stage within fifty yards of it, he picked up one or the bombs and shouted:

"Jesse James, come out here, or I'll blow that hut up!"

Receiving no reply, Jack hurled the grenade.

It struck an end of the hut.

A horrible glare of light flashed out.

It was followed by a report like thunder.

Half of the hut was blown to fragments, and the ground shook.

Jack saw at a glance that the hut was deserted.

He heard the distant voices of men among the trees, and realizing that the bandits had gone into the woods, he drove the stage along a road that wound among the trees.

In a few moments he neared the quicksand lake.

The bandits saw him coming, and aiming their rifles at the gallant young inventor they fired at him.

A storm of bullets struck Jack.

They did not pierce his armor, however.

He stooped over and picked up one of the grenades.

As soon as he arrived close enough to the outlaws, he hurled the bomb at them, and it landed in their midst.

The explosion was fearful.

Three of the villains were blown to pieces, several were knocked down, the rest were half deafened, and an uproar of hoa.r.s.e yells of pain escaped those who were struck by the flying particles of metal from the exploded sh.e.l.l.

Seeing the Terror coming on toward them rapidily, the bandits who survived rushed away into the woods.

They were filled with horror and alarm.

Such weapons as Jack Wright wielded were beyond their powers of endurance, and they set him down for a fiend.

Once protected by the trees, they shot back at him.

Bang!

Crack!

Boom!

Whiz! came the shots.

Jack picked up another bomb, and let it fly.

It landed among the trees, and bursting there, spilt and tore them to pieces, and sent the outlaws flying again.

At this moment Jack was startled by a wild yell of:

"Help! Save me!"

He looked around to see where the sound came from, and beheld his three friends buried to their necks in the quicksand.

"Good heavens!" he gasped, as he realized what the outlaws had been doing to them.

"They've tried to murder the boys."

He saw that they were in a bed of quicksand.

a.s.sured that he would not have any immediate trouble from the outlaws, Jack went into the stage and got a hatchet.

He then alighted.

His friends were twenty feet from the bank.

They laid pretty close together, but were out of his reach.

Rus.h.i.+ng in among the shrubbery. Jack rapidly cut down a number of cedar trees, and swiftly carried them to the quicksand.

With these he built a rude bridge out to his friends.

Even the trees began to sink in the sand as he walked out on them, but he reached Tim, and seizing him by the arm, he exerted all his enormous strength, and succeeded in pulling him up.

Jack cut his bonds.