Uncle Sam's Boys In The Ranks Part 40

Crack! crack!

For an instant Hal felt almost dizzy with sudden dread, for those flashes seemed almost to smite him in the face.

Yes, he was afraid, for a brief s.p.a.ce. The coward is not the man who is afraid, but the man who allows his fear to overmaster him.

"Fire again," yelled Hal, "and I'll know just where to send a bullet."

As he rushed onward he came out of the corn patch.

Fifty feet further on he saw the fugitive, just dropping to the ground at the roots of a tree.

Crack! crack! crack!

Lying on the ground, his head hardly showing beyond the roots, the fugitive was now in excellent position to stop the young sentry's rush.

Whizz--zz! whizz--zz! Click!

Two of the speeding bullets flew past Hal's head. The third struck and glanced off the rifle b.u.t.t just as Hal, dropping to one knee, was raising the piece to his shoulder to sight.

Bang! That was Hal's rifle, again in action. He had aimed swiftly, but deliberately, for the base of the tree.

Against the military rifle of to-day an ordinary tree offers no protection. The American Army rifle, at short range, will send a bullet through three feet of green oak.

"Wow!" yelled the other. Though Hal did not then know it, the bullet had driven a handful of dirt into the fellow's mouth.

Hal could hear the rascal spitting, so he called:

"Come on out and surrender, and I won't fire again."

"You go to blazes!" yelled an angry voice.

m.u.f.fled as the voice was, it had a strangely familiar sound to the young soldier.

Hal seized the chance to fill his magazine as he shot the bolt back. He slipped another cartridge into the chamber.

From the sounds beyond he knew that his enemy was also reloading.

"Any time you want me to stop shooting," Hal coolly announced, "just call out that you surrender."

Then he brought his piece to his shoulder.

Bang!

He could hear the bullet strike with a thud.

Had there been light Hal could have scored a hit, but all shooting in the dark is mainly guesswork.

Crack! crack! The fugitive's pistol was also in action.

One of the bullets carried the young soldier's sombrero from his head, but he was barely aware of the fact. Yet, had that bullet been aimed two inches lower, it would have found a resting place in his brain.

Bang!

Hal fired his second shot with deliberation.

"Stop that!" wailed the other, with a new note of fear in his voice.

"Surrender!"

Crack! crack!

Two pistol shots made up the reply.

"I'm afraid I've got to kill him, if he doesn't get me first."

Bang!

"Ow--ow--ow--ow!" That yell was genuine enough to show that the young sentry's bullet had struck flesh.

"Do you surrender?"

"Not to you!"

Hal fired again. Then he crouched low, slipping two more cartridges into his rifle.

Crack! crack!

"I'll get you yet," called a furious voice.

Hal started as though he had been shot, though he was not aware of a hit.

"Tip Branders!" he called, in astonishment, and fired again.

"Yes, it's me," came the admission. "Hal Overton, are you going to kill an old friend?"

CHAPTER XXII

CAPTAIN CORTLAND HEADS THE PURSUIT

AWAY over by post number four Hal heard three rifle shots ring out. But he paid no heed. Instead he answered the now terrorized wretch in front of him:

"I'll have to kill you, unless you surrender!"

"Then I'll get you first," came the defiant answer.