Kurt concluded it was about time to begin proceedings.  Resting his revolver on the side of the wheel behind which he lay, he took steady aim at the sentry, holding low.  Kurt was not a good shot with a revolver and the distance appeared to exceed fifty yards.  But as luck would have it, when he pulled trigger the sentry let out a loud bawl of terror and pain, and fell off the car to the ground.  Flopping and crawling like a crippled chicken, he got out of sight below.

Kurt’s shot was a starter for Olsen’s men.  Four or five of the shot-guns boomed at once; then the second barrels were discharged, along with a sharper cracking of small arms.  Pandemonium broke loose in Glidden’s gang.  No doubt, at least, of the effectiveness of the shot-guns!  A medley of strange, sharp, enraged, and anguished cries burst upon the air, a prelude to a wild stampede.  In a few seconds that lighted spot where the I.W.W. had grouped was vacant, and everywhere were fleeing forms, some swift, others slow.  So far as Kurt could see, no one had been fatally injured.  But many had been hurt, and that fact augured well for Olsen’s force.

Presently a shot came from some hidden enemy.  It thudded into the wood of the car over Kurt.  Some one on his side answered it, and a heavy bullet, striking iron, whined away into the darkness.  Then followed flash here and flash there, with accompanying reports and whistles of lead.  From behind and under and on top of cars opened up a fire that proved how well armed these so-called laborers were.  Their volley completely drowned the desultory firing of Olsen’s squad.

Kurt began to wish for one of the shot-guns.  It was this kind of weapon that saved Olsen’s followers.  There were a hundred chances to one of missing an I.W.W. with a single bullet, while a shot-gun, aimed fairly well, was generally productive of results.  Kurt stopped wasting his cartridges.  Some one was hurt behind his car and he crawled out to see.  A villager named Schmidt had been wounded in the leg, not seriously, but bad enough to disable him.  He had been using a double-barreled breech-loading shot-gun, and he wore a vest with rows of shells in the pockets across the front.  Kurt borrowed gun and ammunition; and with these he hurried back to his covert, grimly sure of himself.  At thought of Glidden he became hot all over, and this heat rather grew with the excitement of battle.

With the heavy fowling-piece loaded, Kurt peeped forth from behind his protecting wheel and watched keenly for flashes or moving dark figures.  The I.W.W. had begun to reserve their fire, to shift their positions, and to spread out, judging from a wider range of the reports.  It looked as if they meant to try and surround Olsen’s band.  It was extraordinary—­the assurance and deadly intent of this riffraff gang of tramp labor-agitators.  In preceding years a crowd of I.W.W. men had been nothing to worry a rancher.  Vastly different it seemed now.  They acted as if they had the great war back of them.