“Ain’t he the prairie-dog, huh?” Racey demanded, jabbing his comrade in the ribs with stiffened thumb.  “Just watch him scratch gravel.”

Suddenly Jake Rule and Kansas Casey turned their backs on the frantically labouring Jack Harpe and walked away.  Jack Harpe watched them, threw up a few more half-hearted shovelfuls, and then slammed the implement to earth with a clatter, hitched up his pants, and strode hurriedly after the officers.

“That proves it, I guess,” said Swing.

“Naturally.  She’s enough for us, anyhow.——­ it to ——!”

“Whatsa matter?” inquired Swing, surprised at his friend’s vehemence.

“Whatsa matter?  Whatsa matter?  Everythin’s the matter.  I just happened to think that now Bull won’t be able to tell me what he was going to to-night.”

“That’so.  Can’t you ask the girl?”

“I can, but I ain’t shore it’ll do any good.  Marie ain’t the kind that blats all she knows just to hear herself talk.  If she wants to tell me she will.  If she don’t want to, she won’t.  Bull was my one best bet.”

“What’s that?” cried Swing, raising himself on an elbow.

“That” was the noise of a tumult in Farewell Main Street.  There were shouts and yells and screams.  Above all, screams.  Racey and Swing hurried to the street.  When they reached it the shouts and yells had subsided, but the screams had not.  If anything they were louder than before.  They issued from the mouth of Marie, whom Jake Rule, Kansas Casey, and four other men were taking to the calaboose.  They were doing their duty as gently as possible, and Marie was making it as difficult for them as possible.  She was as mad as a teased rattlesnake, and not a man of her six captors but bore the marks of fingernails, or teeth, or heels.

She had, it appeared, attacked without warning and with a derringer, Jack Harpe as he was walking peacefully along the sidewalk in front of the Starlight.  Only by good luck and a loose board that had turned under the girl’s foot as she fired had Mr. Harpe been preserved from sudden death.

“That’s shore tough,” Racey said to their informant.  “I’m goin’ right away now and get me a hammer and some nails and fix that loose board.”

“You better not let Jack Harpe hear you say that,” cautioned the other.

“If you want something to do, suppose now you tell him,” was Racey’s instant suggestion.

Racey’s tone was light, but his stare was hard.  The other man went away.

“Fire!  Fire!” shrilled young Sam Brown Galloway, bouncing out of his father’s store, and jumping up and down in the middle of Main Street.  “The jail’s afire!  The jail’s afire!”

Men added their shouts to his childish squalls and ran toward the jail.  Racey and Swing trundled along the sidewalk together.  “She’s afire, all right,” said Racey.  “Lookit the smoke siftin’ through the window at the corner.”

The smoke was followed by a vicious lash of flame that whipped up the side of the building and set the eaves alight.  The glass of another window fell through the bars with a tinkle.  A billow of smoke rushed forth.  Smoke was seeping through cracks at the back of the building.