They were half-way along the side wall when the firing began—­but it was not the Mexicans this time who began it.  The shotgun barked; there was the sound of a falling body; two revolver shots and then the sharp ping of a Winchester.  Brennan leaped past the boy ahead, and rounded the corner.  A Mexican stood directly in front of the shattered door peering in, a rifle yet smoking in his hands.  With one swift blow of a revolver butt the marshal dropped him in his tracks, the fellow rolling off the steps onto the ground.  With outstretched hands he stopped the others, holding them back out of any possible view from within.

“Quick now, before that bunch inside gets wise to what’s up.  We’ve got ‘em cornered.  You, Matt, strip the jacket off that Mex, an’ get his hat; bunch ’em up together, and set a match to ’em.  That’s the stuff!  Now, the minute they blaze throw ’em in through that doorway.  Come on, Westcott, be ready to jump.”

The hat was straw, and the bundle of blazing material landed almost in the centre of the floor, lighting up the whole interior.  Almost before it struck, the three men, revolvers gleaming in their hands, had leaped across the shattered door, and confronted the startled band huddled in one corner.  Brennan wasted no time, his eyes sweeping over the array of faces, revealed by the blaze of fire on the floor.

“Hands up, my beauties—­every mother’s son of yer.  Yes, I mean you, yer human catapiller.  Don’t waste any time about it; I’m the caller fer this dance.  Put ’em up higher, less yer want ter commit suicide.  Now drop them rifles on the floor—­gently, friends, gently.  Matt, frisk ’em and see what other weapons they carry.  Ever see nicer bunch o’ lambs, Jim?” His lips smiling, but with an ugly look to his gleaming teeth, and steady eyes.  “Why they’d eat outer yer hand.  Which one of yer is Mendez?”

“He dead, senor,” one fellow managed to answer in broken English.  “That heem lie dar.”

“Well, that’s some comfort,” but without glancing about.  “Now kick the guns over this way, Matt, and touch a match to the lamp on that shelf yonder; and, Jim, perhaps you better stamp out the fire; we’ll not need it any more.  Great Scott!  What’s this?”

It was Miss Donovan, her dress torn, her hair dishevelled, a revolver still clasped in her hand, half levelled as though she yet doubted her realisation of what had occurred.  She emerged from the blackness of the rear room, advanced a step and stood there hesitating, her wide-open eyes gazing about in bewilderment on the strange scene revealed by the glow of the lamp.  That searching, pathetic glance swept from face to face about the motionless circle—­the cowed Mexican prisoners with uplifted hands backed against the wall; the three dead bodies huddled on the floor; Moore, with the slowly expiring match yet smoking in his fingers; the little marshal, erect, a revolver poised in either hand, his face set and stern.  Then she saw Westcott, and her whole expression changed.  An instant their eyes met; then the revolver fell to the floor unnoticed, and the girl sprang toward him, both hands outstretched.