rd the dog. Well, that's too bad. We could use another
good man, right now." Mr. Gwinne spoke the last words with some
annoyance. "Well, come on--let's get everything ready. You fellows had
better scatter round on top of the cells. I reckon the iron is thick
enough to turn a bullet. Anyhow, they can't see you. I'll put out the
light. I'm going to have a devil of a time to keep this dog quiet.
I'll have to stay right with him or he'll bark and spoil the effect."

"They're coming," announced Spinal Maginnis, from a window. "Walkin'
quiet--but I hear 'em crossin' the gravel."

"By-by, Dinesy," said See. "I've been rolling my warhoop, like you
said."

The jail was dark and silent. About it shadows mingled, scattered, and
gathered again. There was a whispered colloquy. Then a score of
shadows detached themselves from the gloom. They ranged themselves in
a line opposite the jail door. Other shadows crept from either side
and took stations along the wall, ready to rush in when the door was
broken down.

A low whistle sounded. The men facing the door came forward at a walk,
at a trot, at a run. They carried a huge beam, which they used as a
battering ram. As they neared the door the men by the jail wall
crowded close. At the last step the beam bearers increased their pace
and heaved forward together.

Unlocked, unbolted, not even latched, the door flung wide at the first
touch, and whirled crashing back against the wall; the crew of the
battering ram, braced for a shock, fell sprawling across the
threshold. Reserves from the sides sprang over them, too eager to note
the ominous ease of that door forcing, and plunged into the silent
darkness of the jail.

They stiffened in their tracks. For a shaft of light swept across the
dark, a trembling cone of radiance, a dancing light on the clump of
masked men who shrank aside from that shining circle, on a doorway
where maskers crowded in. A melancholy voice floated through the
darkness.

"Come in," said Gwinne. "Come in--if you don't mind the smoke."

The lynchers crowded back, they huddled against the walls in the
darkness beyond that cone of dazzling light.

"Are you all there?" said Gwinne. His voice was bored and listless.
"Shaw, Ellis, Clark, Clancy, Tucker, Woodard, Bruno, Toad Hales--"

"I want Sim!" announced Charlie See's voice joyously. "Sim is mine.
Somebody show me which is Sim! Is that him pushin' back toward the
door?"

A clicking sound came with the words,