Wallie had heard enough. "Come on!" he cried, and threw the door wide open. Lombard and Sawtell plunged into the room, and dropped to one knee while they opened fire. Lonergan and Vince were close behind, firing over them, while Wallie remained in back. Guns crashed deafeningly in the confines of the room. The white hat near the bed became a thing alive, leaping across the room in crazy circles. The mound of blankets on the bed became a shaking mass as bullet after bullet bored deep. A score of shots roared in the blink of an eye. Then, back talk, in the voices of six-shooters, came from a corner of the room. Sawtell's gun jumped from his hand as if by magic. His fingers were suddenly a bloody mass, at which the killer stared in stupefaction. More flames lanced from the corner, and Lombard's extended gun arm snapped as a forty-five slug tore through flesh and bone between the wrist and elbow. Sawtell felt no pain in the heat of battle. Instinctive gunman that he was, he fell flat upon his belly, jerking out a second revolver with his left hand. Loud snarls and curses came from pain-maddened Lombard, while Sawtell took careful aim. He steadied his weapon at a point directly between the eyeslits of the mask. His finger tensed upon the trigger. Then, suddenly, his arm dropped, his gun unfired. He went limp and slumped. In his forehead there was a tiny hole, but the back of his head was an awful sight where a soft-nosed bullet had gouged out his skull. Half-blind Bryant Cavendish fired at sounds with an instinct that was supersensitive. Somehow the old man had found one of his guns, and cried aloud in savage hate as he rocketed shot after shot toward the doorway. "They're all ag'in me," he cried out. "I'll show 'em I don't need sight! I can locate skunks by smell." His gun whammed again, and death spat at the doorway. Wallie screamed his orders. "In the corner--shoot 'em--drill 'em!" He pushed from behind at the instant that the lawyer Lonergan took a bullet from the masked man's gun on the hand, and one from Bryant's big revolver in the belly. He pitched forward, and fell across the writhing form of Lombard. Shrill yells and cries of pain rose far above Wallie's livid curses. The Lone Ranger snatched the gun from Bryant's hand. "No more shooting," he cried. He leaped toward the doorway, head low, and charged. Vince had swung to face the surprise counterattack. His gun blazed, but the Lone Ranger was beneath the slug. He crashed into Vince with such force that the runty killer was fairly lifted off his feet and tossed across the room, while his gun was jarred out of his hand.