Seizing a knife from the table, Jesse slammed the door at the kitchen end of the hallway, jammed the knife in such a way over the latch that it would hold it down, then shut and bolted the door leading into the yard. "Round the house to the back side!" yelled someone who had seen Cole and Clell throw up the window-sashes while their chief was closing the doors. Pausing at the cry, the detectives turned and raced back, thinking to get a shot at the outlaws as they leaped from the windows. Followed by the townfolk they ran, leaving the yard practically empty. Where the bandits had tied them stood the three horses. "Quick! This way, boys!" cried the great outlaw. "We can gain our horses! 'Don't shoot unless you have to!'" As he had uttered his change of plans, Jesse had unbolted the door and when his companions were at his side, he threw it open and rushed to the ponies. Cutting the reins with their knives, the three desperadoes vaulted into the saddles. "Down behind the barn," whispered the great outlaw. And digging the rowels of their spurs into the horses' flanks, the outlaws dashed off for the woods they could see at the back of the out-buildings. But just as the outlaws thought they had made their escape unnoticed, a rifle cracked and Clell threw his arms over his head and swayed in his saddle, being prevented from falling by Jesse, who seized him about the waist. CHAPTER XI. CLELL IS WOUNDED. Made overconfident in the success of their "getaway" because of the lack of opposition they had encountered in their dash for liberty, the outlaws had neglected to hide behind the bodies of their ponies when they galloped from the yard, as they would have had they been expecting a fusilade of bullets, and the wounding of Clell was the result. Whirling in his saddle as he heard the report of the rifle, the world-famous desperado looked to see who had fired it. Resting across the top of a fence at the house below, he beheld the blue barrel of the Winchester and, bent down to sight it, the head of a man. One glance was enough to tell the bandit-chieftain who it was who had balked their clear escape. "It's old Rozier!" snorted Jesse, ripping out a terrible oath. "That settles him! If I never live to do another thing, I'll raid his bank! It will hurt the old cuss more to lose his money than it would if I should kill his son or run off with his daughter!" And in the fury of his rage, the great outlaw shook his unoccupied hand defiantly at the banker. So carried away had Jesse been with wrath at the discovery of the identity of the man behind the gun that he seemed oblivious to the fact that man-hunters and citizens of the Springs alike, yelling with excitement and anger at the escape, were swarming from the doors and windows of the farmhouse and around the side of the building, attracted by the bark of the rifle.