The Incredible Slingshot Bombs By ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS It was only a slingshot, but it hurled more death than a thousand-pound bomb. Where did Tommy Sonofagun get those deadly pellets? [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories May 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [Illustration: Tommy Sonofagun drew back the sling and let fly with a pellet.] "You go over to the other ridge," the sheriff said to the two deputies. "If he tries to get out that way, stop him. But remember, we want him alive, _if we can get him that way_." I only half heard what the sheriff said. My attention was fully occupied by the dogs down in Ten Mile Valley below us. I couldn't see them but I could hear them bugling down there in the cedar thickets. Baying slowly and mournfully, they were searching for the lost trail. A creek ran down the middle of the valley. Probably Tommy Sonofagun had crossed the creek and thrown the bloodhounds off his trail. Tommy might be a moron but he had enough animal cunning to lose a pack of hounds that were after him. His name wasn't really Tommy Sonofagun. It was Tommy Britten, but the loafers around Brock's Tavern had taught him to say that his name was Tommy Sonofagun. _They_ thought this was funny. The sheriff and I watched the two deputies tramp down into Ten Mile Valley, but we lost sight of them before they reached the farther ridge. The steel towers of an electric high-line ran along this ridge for a couple of miles, then dipped down and crossed the valley. The transmission line carried current from the big dam about twenty miles to the north. When the war first started, there was some fear that enemy agents might sabotage this high-line and the sheriff had spent most of his time out in the hills guarding it. The sheriff was a big, raw-boned mountaineer by the name of Tim Hoskins. He wore store clothes like they were overalls, he was long and lank, and if you took one look at him, you had the instant impression he had just enough sense to come in out of the rain, and no more. If you took a second look and noticed the slow cautious way he talked and the slow but damned sure way he moved, and especially if you looked at his eyes, which never faltered from the gaze of any man, you would be likely to decide you were damned glad you lived in a country where they had sheriffs like this. "What do you make of it, sheriff?" I asked. He was carrying his left arm in a bloody sling. Before he answered he adjusted the sling so his arm hung a little easier. Then he shook his head. "I don't know, Ben. I just don't know."