Arizona reluctantly let his gun drop back in its holster.  He nodded to Sinclair.  The latter gave his directions swiftly, speaking loudly to make his voice carry over the roar of the crowd.

“When the door goes down, which it’ll do pretty pronto, I’ll dive out from this side, and you run from the other side, straight into the crowd.  I’ll turn to the right, and you turn to the left.  The minute you’re around the corner of the building shoot back over your shoulder, or straight into the air.  It’ll make ’em think that you’ve stopped and are going to fight ’em off from the corner.  They’ll take it slow, you can bet.  Then beat it straight on for the cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop.”

“They’ll drop us the minute we show.”

“Sure, we got the long chance, and nothing more.  Is that good enough for you?”

He was rewarded in the dimness by a glint in the eyes of Arizona, and then the fat man gripped his hand.

“You and me agin’ the world.”

In the meantime the door was bulging in the center under blows of increasing weight.  A second battering ram was now brought into play, and the rain of blows was unceasing.  Still between shocks, the door sprang back, but there was a telltale rattle at every blow.  Finally, as a yell sprang up from the crowd at the sight, the upper hinge snapped loudly, and the door sagged in.  Both timbers were now apparently swung at the same moment.  Under the joint impact the door was literally lifted from its last hinge and hurled inward.  And with it lunged the two battering rams and the men who had wielded them.  They tumbled headlong, carried away by the very weight of their successful blow.

“Now!” called Sinclair, and he sprang with an Indian yell over the heads of the sprawling men in the doorway and into the thick of the crowd.

Half a dozen of the drawn guns whipped up at the sight, but no one could make sure in the half-light of the identity of the man who had dashed out.  Their imaginations placed the two prisoners safely behind the bars inside.  Before they could think twice, a second figure leaped through the doorway and passed them in the opposite direction.

Then they awakened to the fact, but they awakened in confusion.  A dozen shots blazed in either direction, but they were wild, snapshots of men taken off balance.

Two leaps took Sinclair through the thick of the astonished men before him.  He came to the scattering edges and saw a man dive at him.  The cowpuncher beat the butt of his gun into the latter’s face and sped on, whipping around the corner of the little jail, with bullets whistling after him.

His own gun, as he leaped out of sight, he fired into the ground, and he heard a similar shot from the far side of the building.  Those two shots, as he had predicted, checked the pursuers one vital second and kept them milling in front of the jail.  Then they spilled out around the corners, each man running low, his gun ready.