By God, boys, they're shooting.

Say, this is a hold-up." Instantly a white-hot excitement flared from end to end of the car.

Incredibly sinister, heard thus in the night, and in the rain, mysterious, fearful, those four pistol shots started confusion from out the sense of security like a frightened rabbit hunted from her burrow.
Wide-eyed, the passengers of the car looked into each other's faces.

It had come to them at last, this, they had so often read about.

Now they were to see the real thing, now they were to face actuality, face this danger of the night, leaping in from out the blackness of the roadside, masked, armed, ready to kill.