Hampton did not see them, did not seek to see them. Something new, vital, big, had swept suddenly into his life. He was at grips first-hand with unmasked, pulsing forces. A tremor went through him and he was not ashamed of it; for it was not the quaking of fear, but the thrill in the blood of a man who, plucked from a round of social artificialities, finds himself with the smell of burnt powder in his nostrils and who feels a swift eagerness for what may lie just yonder waiting for him. "They're at it now!" he whispered to Burkitt. Men--yes, and a girl--were shooting, not at just wooden and paper targets, but at other men! At men who shot back, and shot to kill. "Listen," said Burkitt. "Somebody's in the old cabin; somebody's outside. Which is which? We got to be awful careful." They began a slow, cautious approach, slipping from bush to bush, from tree to tree, standing motionless now and then to frown into the folds of the night's curtains. Abruptly the firing ceased. They made out vaguely the two forms of the attackers, having located them a moment ago by the spurting flames from their guns. Then, "Got enough in there?" came the snarling voice of Quinnion. "If you haven't, I'm going to burn you out an' be damned to you!" He got an answer he little expected. For Hampton, running out into the open, now that he knew that Bud and Judith must be in the cabin, was firing as he came. Burkitt's rifle spoke with his. "Run for it, Shorty!" yelled Quinnion. "You know where. We're up against the Blue Lake boys." "Bud!" shouted Tommy. "Oh, Bud!" "In the cabin," came Bud's ringing answer. "Give 'em hell, Tommy! Coming!" With his words came the sound of the door snapping back against the wall, the reports of Tommy's rifle and Hampton's pumping hot lead after two racing forms. "They'll get away!" shouted Hampton, a sudden red rage upon him. "Curse it! It's too dark----" Then Tommy gave over shooting and yelled to Lee to hold his fire. For instead of two there were three flying forms, three fast-racing, blurring, shadowy shapes merging with the night. Pollock Hampton, his rifle clubbed in his hand, was running with a college sprinter's speed after Quinnion and Shorty, calling breathlessly: "Look out, they'll get away!" Once Quinnion stopped to shoot back. The hissing lead went wide of the pursuer and he gave over firing and settled down to good, hard running, disappearing from Hampton's staring eyes. But Shorty was still to be seen, running heavily. "Don't shoot, Bud!" cried Tommy again as two figures ran out of the cabin. "Hampton's out there--the crazy fool----" "Hampton, come back!" shouted Lee, running after him. But Hampton was gaining on the heavy-set Shorty and had no thought of coming back. Nor a thought of anything in all the wide world just then but overtaking the flying figure in front of him. Shorty stumbled over a fallen log and rose, cursing and calling: "Chris! Lend a hand."