CHAPTER IX.

A CLEVER RUSE.

The bullet from Jack's pneumatic pistol struck Jesse James, and a hoarse yell of pain escaped the bandit king.

He reeled back and would have fallen, had not Oll Shepard caught him in his arms.

"I'm wounded!" he gasped.

"Who are they?" hissed Shepard.

"Jack Wright. I recognize his voice."

"There's only three of them."

"But they are firing bomb-shells."

"We'll bring them down!"

He yelled to the gang, and over a score of rifles and pistols were aimed at Jack, the Dutchman, and the sailor.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang! rattled the shots.

A hail of leaden pellets struck the trio.

But their suits shed the bullets as if they were rain drops, and they continued to pour a deadly fire into the outlaws.

Every time a bullet burst it either scattered and injured many or else it lodged in a solitary man and blew a big piece out of him.

It was impossible to withstand such fire.

The worst of it was their bullets failed to injure the three.

As man after man was getting wounded Jesse gasped:

"By heavens, we'll have to retreat!"

"This is awful, and only three of them too!" groaned Bill Chadwell.

"To horse!" roared Jesse.

He had recovered from the shock of the shot he got and the whole gang made a rush for the bushes firing back at Jack and his friends as they went.

By this time the train crew recovered from their panic, and those of the passengers who had weapons drew them and began firing out the windows.

The bandits broke into a run.

"That settles them!" cried Jack. "They see that they can't hurt us, while we stand an excellent chance of killing them."

"Chase 'em! They've got Timberlake yet," said Tim.

The outlaws' horses were concealed among the shrubbery, and they mounted and sped away through the railroad cut.

Jack and his friends ran after them.

The inventor now saw the sheriff.

One of the outlaws held him on a horse.

Jack aimed at the animal and fired a shot.

True to its mark sped the bullet, a wild neigh of agony escaped the animal, and it bounded high in the air and fell dead, the two riders being thrown to the ground.

The bandit was stunned.

But the sheriff, although pounded and bruised, escaped fatal injury and retained his senses.

"I've saved him!" said Jack.

"Bully fer you, my lad!"

"I vill catch dot oudlaw!"

While Jack was cutting Timberlake's bonds and ungagging him, Tim and Fritz secured the bandit.

"Well," said the sheriff, when he was free, "this is luck."

"I see they got away from you at the hollow."

"Yes; I was too confident of beating them."

"What were they doing with you?"

"They already had my death sentence passed, and were going to put me out of the way as soon as they finished that train job. But you have baffled them nicely."

"Not only with you, but we stopped them getting into the express car. We arrived just in time."

"Where's the Terror?"

"Up the road, crippled."

"That's a pity!"

"Come back to the train till I see the amount of damage they've done," said Jack. "Are you hurt any?"

"Scratched and bruised a trifle."

Tim and Fritz went ahead of them, carrying their prisoner, and when they reached the cars they found two more of the bandits badly wounded in the train crew's hands.

All had recovered from the panic by this time.

The conductor now rushed up to Jack, followed by the train crew and passengers.

He gave the young inventor a hearty handshake, and cried:

"Let me thank you on behalf of all the people and myself for your gallant conduct, sir. If you had not come to our rescue, God only knows what would have become of us at the hands of the James Boys' gang."

"You exaggerate the case," quietly replied Jack.

"No, no, no! Gentlemen, three cheers for these noble fellows!"

"Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" shouted the passengers.

Some of them had been robbed.

But the majority escaped, owing to the timely arrival of Jack's party upon the scene.

Moreover, the contents of the express car had been kept out of the clutches of the bandits.

True, the explosion had slightly injured the two men who had been in the car, but their condition might have been worse had Jack not interfered.

All the bandits had vanished except the three who had been captured, and they were bound hand and foot, and put aboard the car.

The conductor took charge of them.

He intended to put them in the hands of the law.

As soon as the passengers were back in the coaches, and the engineer and stoker in the cab, every one gave Jack and his friends a parting cheer.

The train then moved ahead.

"We didn't do so blamed bad arter all," chuckled Tim.

"Did yer see me drop forty o' them pirates vi' one shot?"

"Forty?" grinned Fritz.

"Ay--that's wot I see," Tim answered, haughtily.

"Nein! Yer vos misdooken."

"How so?" growled the old sailor.

"It vos eight hundert. But dere only vos dirty in ther gang."

"Come!" interposed Jack. "Quit your fooling, and let us get back to the stage. She's so disabled that we can't chase the bandits with her now. The sooner she's repaired the quicker we'll be able to get upon their trail and hunt them down."

They strode back to where they left the Terror.

Both the parrot and monkey were yelling furiously inside, and did not cease their clamor until their owners went in and pacified them.

It required several hours to repair the driving rod, and when it was finished, although not as strong as it was before, it was very firm.

They could not do anything further that night, so they divided the watch and turned in.

After breakfast on the following morning, Jack mounted the steersman's seat, and sent the Terror rolling to the place where the bandits were last seen.

There he saw a large plain trail they had left.

"I'll follow their tracks," said he to Tim, who had taken a seat beside him. "It's an easy trail to follow, and if we have say sort of a chance, we are bound to run them down in a short time."

"I ain't so sure about that my lad."

"Why not?"

"Jesse James are mighty cunnin'."

"That's a fact. He may fool us yet,"

"Still thar ain't no harm in tryin'."

Jack sent the Terror flying off in pursuit of the bandits, and they ran out on the open plain.

It was a rolling, grassy country.

The trail led them on for a distance of about five miles when an old blasted oak tree was met.

Here the cunning of the James Boys was shown.

Evidently fearing pursuit, they had ordered the gang to scatter in every direction, each one going to a different point of the compass.

It was then utterly impossible to follow any particular one of the gang, and know which one it was.

Jack was rendered angry.

"See there how they've baffled us!" he cried with a frown, as he pointed down at the scattered trails.

"Gee whiz!" groaned Tim, "they've throwed us off ther course entirely now, Wot one'll we foller?"

"If you mean so that we can corral the James Boys, I cannot say--one trail is the same as another."

"Blast thar lubberly hides!"

"I've got a plan though."

"An wot's that?"

"To pursue any one at random."

"But mebbe it won't be ther one we wants."

"Any one will do. Whoever the man is, we can perhaps catch him and force him to confess where the rest are to meet. By that means we can find them again."

"Jist ther plan, by thunder!" cried Tim, pounding his good leg with his fist. "Keel haul me if you ain't got as long a figgerhead as Jesse James, cute though he be."

Jack told Fritz and the sheriff what occurred, and what he now intended to do.

They agreed with his plan.

In fact it was the only feasible thing to do.

Accordingly Jack selected the most likely trail.

He then sent the Terror flying off after it, and she sped along until the afternoon set in before they finally sighted the man they were after.

Then they saw that he was Frank James.