But the vigilantes were intent first of all on capturing and burning the hall known as the Three Horses, and the rioters rallied to its defence. As the place was assailed, the doors were barred and a sharp fire was poured through the windows. The assailants were driven back. Bill Dancing, heated and stubborn, refused to retreat and, picking up a sledge dropped by a fleeing vigilante, attacked the barred doors single-handed. The street, swept by the bullets of the fray, rang with the splitting blows of the heavy hammer, as the lineman, his long hair flying from his forehead, swung at the thick panels. Within, the gamblers tried to shoot him from the windows, but he stood close and his friends kept up a constant supporting fire that drove the defenders back. From above they hurled chairs and tables down on Dancing, but his head seemed furniture-proof, and scorning to waste time in dodging he hammered away, undaunted, until he splintered the panels and the stout lock-stiles gave. The vigilantes, running up, tore through the door chains with crowbars and rushed the building. The fight in the big room lasted only a moment. The rioters crowded toward the rear and escaped as best they could. Vigilantes with torches made short work of the rest of it. Dancing stove in a cask of alcohol, and as the attacking party ran out of the front door a torch was flung back into the spreading pool. A great burst of fire lighted the street. The next moment the long building was in flames. Emboldened by this success and driving the outlaws from their further retreats, the vigilantes fired one after another of the gaudy places that lined the upper street. Met by close shooting at every turn, the rioters were driven up the hill and fighting desperately were pursued to cover by men now as savage as themselves. The scattered clashes were brief and deadly. The whole upper town was on fire. Men fleeing for their lives skulked in the shadows of the side streets and the constant scattering report of fire-arms added to the terrors of the night. Hour after hour the conflagration raged and day broke at last on the smoking ruins of the town of Medicine Bend. The work of the vigilantes had been mercilessly thorough. Along the railroad track stiffened bodies hanging from the cross-bars of telegraph poles in the gloom of the breaking day told a ghastly story of justice summarily administered to the worst of the offenders. In the gloom of the smoking streets stragglers roamed unmolested among the ruins; for of the outlaws, killed or hunted out of the town, none were now left to oppose the free passage of any one from end to end of Medicine Bend. CHAPTER XXV The victory was dear, but none murmured at its cost. Medicine Bend for once had been purged of its parasites.