Like an arrow he darted out of the door. The proprietor, who was just coming into the place from an errand next door, spread his arms to stop him. Down went Jack’s head, and like a battering ram he butted the fat landlord, gasping, out of his path.
After him came a shower of plates, glasses and bottles and loud, excited shouts.
Jack ran as he had never run in his life before. Behind him came the heavy beat of the firemen’s feet. How much mercy he could expect from them if they laid hands on him, he knew.
Nobody was in sight. Jack’s safety lay in his own heels, a fact he recognized with a quick gasp of dismay.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As he doubled the nearest corner, like a hare with the hounds close upon it, Jack uttered a wild shout for help. He hoped that somebody might hear it.
But there was no result from his appeal for aid. Were there no policemen in New York?
The street he had blindly doubled into was lined on each side by tall, dark, silent warehouses. The blank walls echoed back the sound of his flying feet and the heavy footfalls of those in pursuit.
Jack realized, with a thrill of dismay, that they were gaining on him. He heard the heavy exhalation and intake of the runners’ breaths.
Suddenly one of his pursuers whipped out a revolver and fired.
The audacity of the deed sent Jack’s heart racing faster than before. A man who would dare to fire a revolver on a New York street, dark and deserted though it was, would hardly stick at any act of violence.
“If I can’t throw them off, it’s all up with me,” thought the boy.
Another report echoed back from the shadowy walls on either side. This time the bullet came close, but it was only a random shot, for at the pace they were running nobody could take careful aim.
The effect of the closely singing bullet was to make Jack lose his nerve utterly. Blindly he plunged forward, not hearing the distant screaming of police whistles and the thunder of nightsticks as they were rapped on the pavements.
The sound of the revolver shots had aroused the police at last. From every direction they came running; but Jack, in a perfect frenzy of fear, knew nothing of all this. He did see, though, that he was coming into a better lighted quarter. A few stores and residences blossomed with lights, and help lay ahead if he could only make it in time.