Terry Jordan and Bill Kilduff rushed at the dim figure, crouched to the floor.  Their guns spat fire, but they merely lighted the way to their own destruction.  Twice Dan’s revolver spoke, and they dropped, yelling.  Pandemonium fell on the room.

The long riders raced here and there, the revolvers coughing fire.  For an instant Hal Purvis stood framed against the pallid moonshine at the window.  He stiffened and pointed an arm toward the door.

“The werewolf,” he screamed.

As if in answer to the call, Black Bart raced across the room.  Twice the revolver sounded from the hand of Purvis.  Then a shadow leaped from the floor.  There was a flash of white teeth, and Purvis lurched to one side and dropped, screaming terribly.  The door banged.  Suddenly there was silence.  The clatter of a galloping horse outside drew swiftly away.

“Dan!”

“Here!”

“Thank God!”

“Buck, one got away!  If it was Silent—­Here!  Bring some matches.”

Someone was dragging himself towards the door in a hopeless effort to escape.  Several others groaned.

“You, there!” called Buck.  “Stay where you are!”

The man who struggled towards the door flattened himself against the floor, moaning pitifully.

“Quick,” said Dan, “light a match.  Morris’s posse is at my heels.  No time.  If Silent escaped—­”

A match flared in the hands of Buck.

“Who’s that?  Haines!”

“Let him alone, Dan!  I’ll tell you why later.  There’s Jordan and Kilduff.  That one by the door is Rhinehart.”

They ran from one to the other, greeted by groans and deep curses.

“Who’s that beneath the window?”

“Too small for Silent.  It’s Purvis, and he’s dead!”

“Bart got him!”

“No!  It was fear that killed him.  Look at his face!”

“Bart, go out to Satan!”

The wolf trotted from the room.

“My God, Buck, I’ve done all this for nothin’!  It was Silent that got away!”

“What’s that?”

Over the groans of the wounded came the sound of running horses, not one, but many, then a call:  “Close in!  Close in!”

“The posse!” said Dan.

As he jerked open the door a bullet smashed the wood above his head.  Three horsemen were closing around Satan and Black Bart.  He leaped back into the room.

“They’ve got Satan, Buck.  We’ve got to try it on foot.  Go through the window.”

“They’ve got nothing on me.  I’ll stick with Haines.”

Dan jumped through the window, and raced to the shelter of a big rock.  He had hardly dropped behind it when four horsemen galloped around the corner of the house.

“Johnson and Sullivan,” ordered the voice of Monte sharply, “watch the window.  They’re lying low inside, but we’ve got Barry’s horse and wolf.  Now we’ll get him.”

“Come out or we’ll burn the house down!” thundered a voice from the other side.