Zang and the Killer into a trap laid by that smiling little enemy, Original Bill Blunt!
Roots tripped her and she scrambled whimpering to her feet. The sly enmity of the blackberry vines laid snares for her, pecked at her thrusting arms with vicious claws. Now the leisurely sweep of the stream had brought her very close to the town, where the bridge crosses on to Main Street. Almost above her head were the black silhouettes of buildings.
Hilma climbed the steep bank away from running water and dropped behind a packing box on a rubbish heap of discarded cans to listen for the footfalls of pursuit. None sounded. There was now no more sound of firing from the direction of the jail, now the whole span of the town's four blocks away from the fugitive. She ran, bending low, to throw herself beneath a wagon standing in an unused corral behind the blacksmith shop. From the wagon her next spurt took her to the refuse piles at the back of the Fashion Stables, the objective of her Indianlike dodging and twisting. A manure trap at the back of the stable was open; through it the girl climbed to drop to the floor at the end of the dim row of stalls.
