Detective Bob Bridger — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. 79 splinters warned me that an opening had been made by the men battering at the hall-way door. ‘‘The attack on the door, however, was suspended at the first series of screams set up by the flying women. “Thinking that I had sprung from the window, and was committing new deeds of blood in my efforts to escape, the large portion of the attacking party hastened from the door and about the corner of the hotel toward the bonfire. “Others, less eager for my gore, darted away toward the platform of the station, and one broad, burly fellow— whom I perceived was the farmer who had so boldly volun- teered to get me ready for the rope—actually reached the railway before the women did. ‘‘Nor did his stampeded courage permit him to pause here, for far out in the darkness, across the track he flew, and as the furthest glimmer of the bonfire’s light died away in the direction he took, it showed a pair of extended coat- tails.” CHAPTER XVIII. THE ESCAPE. ‘When the men learned the cause of the scatterment of the women they returned to their assault on the door with renewed vigor,’ went on the Scotch detective. “As their blows fell upon the half-demolished barrier, and Constable Westbrook’s threats came mingled with their shouts of victory, I began in earnest to look out a method of escape. ‘“Stooping upon my knees, I lit a match, and shielding its light with my hand, surveyed the apartment. “It was an ordinary sleeping-room, and one of a row running from front to rear, on the second story. From its size and the depth of the hotel, I calculated that four rooms intervened between it and the rear wall of the house. ‘‘A door, surmounted by a fan-light, joined the apart- ments front and back. ‘“These doors were locked, and as the bed of the room [I was in stood closely against the front door, and a table near the rear door, I inferred that the entire row of rooms had unused connecting doors. ‘Springing upon the table at the rear door, I set to work at the fan-light over it with the screw-driver I carried for tuning purposes. Eomiecboo <S (ele)