“Throw up your hands!” commanded a carefully disguised voice.

The driver obeyed—­but his right hand came up with an automatic pistol in it.  He fired straight into the bunch—­foolishly, perhaps; at any rate harmlessly, though they heard the bullet sing as it went by.  Startled, one of the six fired back impulsively, and the other two followed his example.  Had they tried to kill, in the night and drunk as they were, they probably would have failed; but firing at random, one bullet struck flesh.  The man with the automatic flinched backward, reeled forward drunkenly and went down slowly, his companion grasping futilely at his slipping body.

“Hey, you darn mutts, whatcha shootin’ for?  Hell of a josh, that is!” Jack shouted angrily and unguardedly.  “Cut that out and pile in here!”

While the last man was clawing in through the door, Jack let in the clutch, slamming the gear-lever from low to high and skipping altogether the intermediate.  The big car leaped forward and Hen bit his tongue so that it bled.  Behind them was confused shouting.

“Better go back and help—­what?  You hit one,” Jack suggested over his shoulder, slowing down as reason cooled his first hot impulse for flight.

“Go back nothing! And let ’em get our number?  Nothing doing!”

“Aw, that mark that was with him took it.  I saw him give it the once-over when he came back.”

“He did not!” some one contradicted hotly.  “He was too scared.”

“Well, do we go back?” Jack was already edging the car to the right so that he would have room for a turn.

“No!  Step on ’er!  Let ’er out, why don’t yuh?  Damn it, what yuh killin’ time for?  Yuh trying to throw us down?  Want that guy to call a cop and pinch the outfit?  Fine pal you are!  We’ve got to beat it while the beatin’s good.  Go on, Jack—­that’s a good boy.  Step on ’er!”

With all that tumult of urging, Jack went on, panic again growing within him as the car picked up speed.  The faster he went the faster he wanted to go.  His foot pressed harder and harder on the accelerator.  He glanced at the speedometer, saw it flirting with the figures forty-five, and sent that number off the dial and forced fifty and then sixty into sight.  He rode the wheel, holding the great car true as a bullet down the black streak of boulevard that came sliding to meet him like a wide belt between whirring wheels.

The solemn voice that had croaked “S-o-m-e time!” so frequently, took to monotonous, recriminating speech.  “No-body home!  No-body home!  Had to spill the beans, you simps!  Nobody home a-tall!  Had to shoot a man—­got us all in wrong, you simps!  Nobody home!” He waggled his head and flapped his hands in drunken self-righteousness, because he had not possessed a gun and therefore could not have committed the blunder of shooting the man.

“Aw, can that stuff!  You’re as much to blame as anybody,” snapped the man nearest him, and gave the croaker a vicious jab with his elbow.