Simrall was the last to get under way; he was just getting up off his haunches in Dr. Hall's door as Mrs. Charles arrived. He caught a crack from her shovel that put him down again, nothing left stirring inside him to bring him up.
The jerries went whooping up Custer Street after Dr. Hall's assailants, Micky Sweat leading them on his long legs, his tamping-bar carried like a gun with a bayonet at the end of it. Close after him, second in pursuit, Dr. Hall himself ran, going a bit foggily on account of a bunged eye, but careless of appearances, dignity, and everything else but vengeance, the pick-handle some kind jerry had given him ready for the first head he might reach.
At the square there was consternation among the Simrall ranks. Those left to guard against an uprising in town were terrified at sight of this tremendous, sudden charge from an unexpected quarter. From their distance the jerries' bars looked like guns. There was a break for the wagons; somebody got Simrall's buckboard. It led the retreat at a gallop, carrying three men.
Up Custer Street the railroaders came, roaring like a tornado, Mrs. Charles in the midst of them, her hair flying, her sharp voice rising high. One by one the jerries overtook the men who had come to search Hall's office, a cottonwood tree on the river bank their ultimate objective; as fast as they were overhauled they fell, were submerged, thumped and kicked, nobody but the two on horseback getting away unmarked.
To make matters worse for the Simrall men who were whipping their teams to escape this irresistible charge of railroaders, somebody began shooting at them from the
