Chapter 5

THE JAMES BOYS' MOTHER.

The trip to Missouri was made without adventure by the Terror, but her peculiar appearance aroused the wonder of everybody who saw her during her journey through several States.

Late in the afternoon of a pleasant day she passed Kearney, in Clay County, and followed an old country road.

A few miles from the town she arrived near a neat old log house standing back in a wooded pasture near the road.

This house contained three rooms; in the front yard were several lilac bushes, and all the way from its fences to the town many farm houses lined the road.

Sheriff Timberlake sat on the steerer's seat of the electric stage beside Jack, and the moment the old fashioned Western home referred to came in view he pointed at it and said:

"There is the home of the James Boys."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Jack, eying the house intently.

"Yes; it is the residence of Dr. Reuben Samuels, their step-father, and the mother of the two villains. She's a Tartar about her boys--a regular she-fiend in temper, although a woman of fifty-five. Ah--see! There she is now!"

He pointed at the house.

The woman, in a gingham dress, stood at the door.

She was shading her eyes with her hand.

A look of surprise crossed Jack's face as he glanced at her.

"Why," said he, "she has only got one arm."

"Yes; the other was blown off by the explosion of a hand grenade which a Pinkerton detective threw into the house some years ago in an attack upon her sons. There was a younger son of hers killed by the same bomb."

Mrs. Samuels was suspiciously and curiously eying the Terror as it rolled toward her.

Then she suddenly disappeared in the house.

Her action struck Jack as being very significant.

"Did you see that!" he asked the sheriff.

"Yes. She's a queer, violent tempered woman,"

"Perhaps she has gone in to warn her sons of our coming."

"By thunder, you may be right."

"We'd better search that house, Timberlake."

"I intend to do so."

"The woman is acquainted with you, ain't she?"

"Well, I should say so," laughed the officer. "I've been here often enough to be pretty well known. My posse has shot bullets into nearly every square inch of that house and the fence, in our past efforts to get at the two bandits."

"The woman can't have much affection for you."

"She would gladly kill me, I believe, if she had the chance."

By this time the Terror reached the house.

Jack cut out the current and alighted with his companion.

They knocked at the door, and a moment later it was opened by Mrs. Samuels, who glared at her callers and demanded:

"Well--what do you want, Timberlake?"

"Your sons, madam," blandly replied the officer.

"They ain't here."

"I am not sure of that."

"Search the house if you like."

"Thank you. I shall."

He swiftly passed inside and went through the rooms, but saw nothing of the James Boys.

Jack remained at the door with the woman.

He saw by her nervous manner that she was smothering a feeling of intense agitation.

Whether it came from her aversion of the officer, or because her sons were around, Jack could not judge.

"That's a mighty queer wagon you've got there," she remarked presently, as she pointed at the Terror.

"Yes," replied Jack. "It is designed to run down your sons."

She started, and a tigerish look flashed from her eyes.

"So you are leagued against them, too, eh!" she hissed.

"Yes. I am here to capture them if I can."

"But you will never succeed."

"That remains to be seen."

At this moment Timberlake rushed out.

He was terribly excited.

A smothered cry of alarm escaped Mrs. Samuels.

"I've seen them!" gasped the officer.

"Where?" demanded Jack, quickly.

"Both were here. She warned them. They got down in the cellar. I found a tunnel there, leading over to that timber. They had gone through. Jesse's horse, Siroc, and Frank's horse, Jim Malone, must have been tethered there, for they mounted and dashed away."

"Get aboard, and we'll chase them."

"You shall not go!" hissed the woman.

She slammed the door shut, and put her back against it, a look of fierce determination upon her face.

It was clear that she designed to delay them so as to give her fugitive sons as long a lead as possible.

Jack saw through her scheme.

"Get away from there! he cried, sternly.

"You can't leave this house!" she shrieked.

"I see through your plan."

"Stand back, or I'll brain you with this!"

She had been holding her hand behind her back.

As she now brought it into view, they saw that she held a hatchet with a keen, glittering edge.

"This way, Mr. Wright!" cried Timberlake.

And he dove headfirst through a window.

Jack started to follow him, when the woman rushed after him with the hatchet upraised.

There was no such emotion as fear in the mother of the Missouri bandits, and she had bred her ferocity and evil will into her two detestable children.

Jack's life was in danger, for she could have dealt him a death blow with the weapon before he could get out the window after the sheriff.

He therefore turned upon her.

The young inventor was noted for his enormous strength.

Avoiding an ugly blow she aimed at his head by nimbly leaping aside, he seized the hatchet before she could raise it again and made an effort to take it away from her.

She was wonderfully strong in her single arm.

In fact, the strength she lost with the arm which had been blown off seemed to have concentrated in this remaining arm.

Jack found it no easy matter to get the weapon, for she held on to it with great persistence, and exerted every device to delay him as long as possible.

"You shall not have it!" she raved as she struggled.

"Let up!" cried Jack, losing patience. "I don't want to use you roughly on account of your sex and crippled condition. But I'll have to do it."

He thereupon tore the hatchet from her hand.

Flinging it into the next room, he saw her spring toward him, and make an effort to grapple him.

Struggling with women was very distasteful to Jack.

He therefore avoided her and rushed out the door.

She ran after him screaming and threatening, but he kept out of her reach and got upon the stage.

The sheriff was already aboard.

Jack sent the Terror flying along the road.

In a few moments she was out of reach of the woman.

There was a door in the forward part of the vehicle beside Jack, and Tim and Fritz now opened it.

"Gee whiz," chuckled the old sailor. "She wuz ther most piratical craft in petticoats wot I ever seen!"

"I don't blame her for trying to protect her sons."

"Yah; but she vos delay us!" growled Fritz.

"Only a few moments."

"There they go now!" cried Timberlake.

He pointed up the road at two flying horsemen.

They were so far away that their figures could hardly be distinguished, and their steeds were going like the wind.

"What a magnificent black horse," commented Jack.

"That's Siroc," informed the sheriff, "Jesse's horse."

"We'll overhaul them though."

"Let her fly if you wish to succeed."

"Are you sure they were the James Boys?"

"Certain. I did not get very near them, but noticed that one wore a heavy beard and the other a mustache. They had on riding boots, with the legs of their pants tucked in the tops, flannel shirts and soft felt hats, while around their waists were buckled cartridge belts into which were thrust a knife and brace of revolvers a piece."

"Does that description tally with the general appearance of the James Boys?" asked Jack.

"Yes. I am sure it was them."

The young inventor put on full voltage.

It caused the motor to fairly buzz, and the Terror shot ahead along the road with the velocity of an express train.

She rapidly bore down upon the fugitives.

It was a long and exciting chase, though, for Siroc and Jim Malone were wonderfully fleet horses.

Several miles were thus covered.

Finally, though, the machine drew close to the two riders.

"Halt!" shouted Jack.

Casting a quick glance back the riders obeyed.

So suddenly did they pull up their steeds, that they rose on their haunches and pawed the air.

The four inmates of the Terror had them covered with their rifles, and when the horses came down and wheeled around, a shout of chagrin escaped Timberlake.

"Duped!"

"What do you mean?" asked Jack, in surprise.

"They ain't the James Boys."

"Sure enough. But the horses belong to the bandits."

"Yes; that's how I was deceived. Now I see through it. I've been tricked. I really chased Jesse and Frank from the tunnel. They put these men on their horses and hid, while their two men rode off to decoy us from the spot so they could escape."

Such was really the way it happened.

Jack had stopped the Terror, and now shouted to the two men, who were part of the James Boys' gang.

"Throw your hands up!"

Both men obeyed.

"Don't fire!" pleaded one of them.

"That depends on how you answer me."

"What do you want to know, sir?"

"You just heard our version of how the James Boys eluded us?"

"We did, sir."

"Is it correct?"

"Yes."

"Are you members of their gang?"

"We are."

"Where have they gone!"

"I refuse to tell you!"

"Your life depends upon it."

"I don't care. I won't betray them."

"Fool! I will count three. If you don't answer, we'll fire!"

"Go ahead!" was the defiant reply.

"One!" exclaimed Jack.

The two bandits did not flinch.

"Two!" sternly cried the inventor.

Still the men stubbornly refused to speak.

"Three!"

A deathly silence ensued for a moment.

Then the weapons in the hands of our friends were discharged.