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He would make his final escape when the flood swept the Cascade Canyon Bridge into the gorge If his luck held, he would be the last man across it

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ABBOTT SCRAMBLED ALONGSIDE BELL WHEN THE WRECKER’S gang stopped shooting

“Isaac, he’s got a huge lake up there i if he were to blow it, he’d flood the bridge”

Bell sent four detectives to track the fleeing gunh the woods He settled three wounded men as best he could beside the road and made sure that at least one could defend them in case the attackers came back There were two dead horses in the road The rest had bolted Bell started running up the rutted track, with Abbott and Dashwood hot on his heels

“That’s the camp ahead,” called Abbott

Just as the road opened up at

the lu behind trees

“It’s a diversion,” said Bell “So he can blow the dam”

They emptied their Winchesters in the direction of the attack The shooting stopped, and they pressed on, drawing their sidearms

CROUCHED AT THE BASE of the log da fifty feet to the river beside him, Philip Do his life was over when the Winchesters stopped boo as he could

The killer had no regrets

He’d stayed loyal to his principles And he’d relieved the world of a fair number of plutocrats, aristocrats, and other rats But he knehen it was time to call it quits All he had to do to end with honor was to finish this one last job Blow the daht hi Except first, before he lit the fuse and took the Big Jump, he wanted to send a few more rats ahead of him

Three of theed out of the woods, pistols in hand They would mob him the instant he attacked This was a bos already laid in the danite froth from the fuse and carefully removed one of detonators

The detectives spotted him He heard their shouts faintly over the roar of the water They cas of the skid He had only seconds With fingers as steady as sculpted stone, he attached the short fuse to the detonator and janite bundle He blocked the spray with his body, took a dry match and striker from their corked bottle, and touched the flame to the fuse Then he held the six sticks behind his back and walked rapidly toward the detectives