And he was away, down the bit of lamplit street that ran so quickly into country road, past outlying cabins already dark, till he struck the first rise of Turkey Track and slacked rein. A moment he turned, looking over his shoulder at the lights. Upon the instant the Court House bell back there broke out in loud, frightened clamor. [338] "Clang! Clang! Clang!" Somebody was pulling wildly on the rope to call out the little volunteer fire company. He heard cries, shouts, and then the long wavering halloo that shakes the heart of the village dweller. "Fire! Fire! Fire!" Derf's store must be blazing. He wondered dully if they had dragged Flenton's body away from the flames. Hearkening, he suffered Satan to breathe a bit on the rise that would take him to the great boulder where the roads branched, one going up Little Turkey Track, the other leading aside direct to the Big Turkey Track neighborhood. Suddenly he stiffened in his saddle, cut short a groan wrenched from him by his injury, and listened strainingly. Above the now diminishing noise from the village, he distinguished the sound of hoofs that galloped hard, growing louder with each moment,--the feet of one who pursued him. Looping the bridle rein over the pommel of his saddle horn, he got at the pistol Buck had provided, and thereafter rode warily but as rapidly as he dared, looking back to catch the first glimpse of the shape or shapes which might be following. He had just rounded the turn at the fork of the way, when somebody burst into it close at hand, coming through the short cut by Cawthorne's Gulch, and he thought he heard his name called. [339] To be taken now, to be dragged back to the jail, and, if not set upon and lynched by the Beason-Hands following, to rot there till such time as they chose to try him, and possibly pay for his act of wild justice with his own life, this was a vista intolerable to Lance Cleaverage. Raising the weapon he fired at his pursuer. "Oh, don't!" wailed the unseen; and the next moment Sylvane leaped from the mule he rode, ran forward and caught at Satan's mane, panting, "Lance--Lance! I was a-goin' to you as fast as I could. I struck down thar 'bout the time you must have left. I come Dry Valley way. Is it--have you--" At the sound of Sylvane's voice, the heritage of Cain came home to Lance Cleaverage. A great upwelling black horror of himself flowed in on the fugitive. To what had he sunk! A murderer fleeing for his life, in his panic terror of pursuit menacing his own brother who came to help and succor! "Oh, Buddy--Buddy--Buddy!" he cried, doubling forward over the pommel of his saddle, clutching Sylvane's shoulder, and closing his eyes to shut out the face of the dead man which swam before them in that quivering blue light. [340] CHAPTER XXV. THE FLIGHT.