Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

COLD neer to look for him to flee by the speediest means, an automobile, and to the natural avenue of escape, the railroad? Yes. Therefore on that expectation he would adopt another way to throw off pursuit. And perilous as a delay would be in getting away from San Mateo, yet he must risk the few minutes necessary to get money. For to fly with pockets empty meant eventual, certain capture. Money a fugitive from justice must possess above everything in order to possess wings; and no one would know that better than Sorenson. Though Madden and he had seen no light in the building, the cattleman never- theless might have been within. If he had been in the vault, he could safely have lighted a candle without their perceiving its beams; and though the safe was modern it probably had no time lock. Sorenson could unlock it with a few twirls of the combina- tion, stuff his pockets with currency and negotiable paper to the amount of thou- sands, and then slip away. Fortunately the moonlight was to Weir’s advantage. He quickened his steps, passed round the corner into the main street, and - moved toward the structure. For him the crowd at the court-house at that moment had no interest; one person, and one person alone, commanded his thoughts. How correct had been his logic—logic not unmixed with intuition, perhaps—ap- peared when he was yet some fifty yards away from the door he sought. A tall, bulky figure suddenly stepped forth from the low, brick building and instantly ran across the street and lost itself in the shift- ing, jostling crowd that was half-disclosed, half-concealed by the broken shadows of the moonlit trees. Steele Weir proceeded to a spot near the office door and halted. His first impulse to rush after Sorenson had been promptly sup- pressed, as cooler judgment ruled. To seek his quarry in that throng would be labor wasted, while to reveal his identity would be to court a disastrous interference with the business at hand. From where he stood he should much better be able to see the cattleman when he did emerge, unless he chose to remain in the crowd, or stole away at the rear of the court-house yard. STEEL. ee 499 Five minutes passed. The restless, talka- tive Mexicans continued to swarm and buzz with excitement, ceaselessly moving about, forming and reforming in groups, agitatedly repeating newer and wilder rumors concern- ing events. Despite Weir’s intent watch for Soren- son, the engineer could not but observe the mob’s manifestations, observe them with sardonic humor. For their ebullition of the present would be nothing to what it would be if they learned he stood across the street from it, uncaged, unfettered, free and armed, a “ gunman” loose instead of a “gunman ”’ in jail. All at once Weir noted out of the tail of his eye a slight stir among a number of horses standing, with reins atrail, before a store a little way down the street. The horses were partly in the light, partly in the shadow, so that all he could see was that one or two of them had jerked aside quick- ly, then resumed their listless postures. He was about to withdraw his eyes when he saw a man swing up on the back of one ‘of them and start off at an easy canter. Weir sprang toward the spot at arun. That big figure could only be Sorenson’s, for no Mexican he had ever seen in San Mateo could match it. And the plan of escape showed the cattleman’s craftiness in an emergency; gradually working his way through the crowd, he had at last gained the protective shadow of the building on that side of the street and slipped along in it until he had reached the horses. Doubtless the man had conceived the plan at the instant he had stepped from the office door, sweeping the street by one gaging look. With the whole town assem- bled at the court-house, his departure was little likely to be noted by the Mexicans, while Madden and Weir would never sus- pect him of riding off on a horse, or suspect too late. Indeed, he rode at first as if in no great haste, but as he turned his mount into a narrow byway, more a lane than a street, that disappeared between two mud walls, Weir saw him strike his heels into the pony’s flanks. But for the startled movement of the near-by horses when Sorenson took stirrup, Weir would not have looked that way. He ELOOO (C(O) S (C(O) mM