Page:Mulford--The Bar-20 three.djvu/300

288 bling-house and out of the line of sight of every lower  loophole, had the range worked out to a foot. Red and Waffles had discarded their borrowed Sharp's and were now using their own familiar Winchesters, and it was certain death to any man who tried to shoot from Kane's roof on any side but the north one.

Evening came and with it came a hair-brained attempt by Idaho and his irrepressibles to capture and use the stables. Despite McCullough's orders to the contrary the group of youngsters, elated by their success against Red Frank's, made the attempt as soon as darkness fell; and learned with cost that the stables were stacked decks. One man was killed and all the others wounded, most of them so badly as to remove them from the rôle of combatants; but one dogged, persistent, and vindictive unit of the foolish attack managed to set fire to the sun-dried structures before crawling away. The baked wood burned like tinder and became a mass of flames almost in an instant, and for a few minutes it looked as though they would take the gambling-hall with them. It was a narrow squeak and missed only because of a slight shift of the wind. The scattered line of punchers to the north of the building, not expecting the sudden conflagration, had crawled nearer to the gambling-hall in the encroaching darkness, only to find themselves suddenly revealed to their enemies by the towering sheets of flame. They got off with minor injuries only because the north side of the building was not well manned and because the stables were holding the attention of most of the besieged. When the flames died down almost as swiftly as they had grown, the smouldering ashes gave a longer