in line was Thorneau, bulkier and more formidable, but Chet bowled him aside
with a straight-arm shove. Out through the shipping room, Chet didn't stop to
look for the cloaked figure that had receded there. Instead, he sped straight
toward the exit to the loading platform.
There were shouts from the office, a scurry of pursuing feet, Marquette's
voice yelling for others to get out of the way. Clearing the belt line, Chet
turned and grabbed at cans of passing Pyrolac, to bowl them back at his
pursuers. Those gallon cylinders were a happy idea.
Not only did they stop the surge from the office; one container clipped
Marquette, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief, while aiming with his
other hand. The Fed took a spill like a tenpin, his automatic barking wide.
Marquette's sprawl halted Thorneau, who was close behind him.
The only man that Chet didn't see was Biggs. The reason was explained a
moment later, when a great clanging broke through the factory. Biggs had yanked
the emergency alarm which was connected with every office. A few minutes more
and Chet's escape would be completely blocked.
That situation roused Chet's wits the more. Looking back, as he reached the
exit, he saw that he was clear of all pursuers, unless he counted a streak of
sweeping blackness that couldn't be real, although it did appear grotesquely
human. This was no time to debate the subject of ghosts, or consider getting a
pair of glasses.
Straight ahead was a figure real enough, one of the regular factory
watchmen who recognized Chet and was amazed by his rapid flight. The watchman
held a gun, but he wasn't aiming it. Instead, he was expecting Chet to explain
what was happening in the shipping department. So Chet did, in his own terms.
Halting in his tracks, Chet pointed off into the darkened yard and shouted:
"There he goes!"
Perhaps the watchman caught a glimpse of the same blackness that Chet saw,
but it was too evasive to be a target. However, Chet took advantage of the
watchman's hesitation to grab the gun the fellow held. Jabbing a couple of shots
in air, Chet sprang after the imaginary fugitive, to give the idea that someone
other than himself was being hunted.
By then, Marquette was at the exit from the shipping room, bawling to the
men on the loading platform. There were Feds among that crew and they caught the
idea promptly. Pulling their own guns, they swung to look for Chet. They saw him
immediately.
Clanging alarms had given way to wailing sirens, sounding a general man
hunt. In turn, the sirens produced a flood of searchlights from the walls of the
factory yard. Watchmen were springing from various directions, except from the
big gate, through which the railroad siding ran.
There, men were ready to clang the gate shut, waiting only for the shifting
engine to haul the loaded box cars through. For the engineer of the shunter,
knowing that the gate would seal all egress for a while to come, was giving his
boiler full steam for the portal. In the midst of all this, Chet Conroy was no
longer hunted; he was found.
Chet had ducked for the darkness beside the freight cars, only to be
spotted by the glare. And now the cars were being hauled away from him, leaving
him helpless in the very center of the yard. Madly, Chet sprang across the track
as the last car clacked past him; observing darkness on the other side, he made
a quick dart in the direction that the short train was taking.
