Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/325

 on them broadside; he could hear the whistle of the bullets and the splintering of the car-hood sides. He had ridden down the lights and the waiting men.

The stabbing and jetting and drifting powder smoke obscured the gate so that they were upon it before he knew it. There was a second rending and snapping of wood, a vision of flying white pickets, a cry from the soldiers on either side of him. But the car had passed its second barrier, carrying away one end of the framework across its battered lamps.

McKinnon took a deep breath and waited with his foot still on the brake, oppressed by the terror of a sudden derailment. But the great car kept to the tracks and went thundering in between the shadowy buildings that mercifully shut them off from the grilling rifle-fire of DeBrigard's men. He knew, by the passing of the thunderous echo, that they were in the open again, circling up through the scattering lines of mud huts. The sound of a shot or two still came to his ears. He could feel the girl move; she was trying to rise to the seat. But he held her there between his knees as the car continued to plunge and sway along the crooked tracks. Now and then the howling of dogs came to his ears, breaking through the continuous monotone of the wind's rush past his face,