Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/203

 arm a blow that caused it to drop numbly by his side, sending the pistol's discharge into the earth. With the same movement the man crouched half to earth, and thus escaped the other's shot. Without rising, he darted, crouching, for the shelter of trees beyond the fire, but not so quickly as to save his right arm from the second shot by the assistant. Trafford, meantime, had changed his revolver into his left hand and was firing at the fleeing shadow that the man became before disappearing. With his second shot, he heard his assistant at his side.

"You know now, but we've lost him."

"Into the woods; into the woods," Trafford cried, seizing a blazing pine knot. "Quick, we'll get him yet."

Not a man stirred save Trafford, and he made only a step or two. Glancing back, he saw the drivers huddled in an excited and gesticulating group that looked startlingly like mischief. Ahead was the heavy blackness of dense trees. Then he realised that the man had escaped.

Meantime the men were aroused from the stupor of their first surprise and were in a dangerous mood,