answered by similar clickings
here and there in the darkness.

"Tom Ross has got Sim covered," said the unhurried voice of Spinal
Maginnis. "You and Hiram Yoast be sure to get that big fellow in
front. I got my man picked."

A chuckle came from across the way. "You, Vet Blackman! Remember what
I told you? This is me--Buck Hamilton. You're my meat!"

"Oh, keep still and let me call the roll," complained Gwinne's
voice--which seemed to have shifted its position. "Kroner, Jody Weir,
Eastman, Wiley, Hover, Lithpin Tham--"

The beam of light shifted till it lit on the floor halfway down the
corridor; it fell on three boxes there.

From the outer box a cord led up through the quivering light. This
cord tightened now, and raised a door at the end of the box; another
cord tilted the box steeply.

"Look! Look! Look!" shrieked someone by the door.

Two rattlesnakes slid squirming from the box into that glowing
circle--they writhed, coiled, swayed. _Z-z-z--B-z-z-zt!_ The light
went out with a snap.

"Will you fire first, gentlemen of the blackguards?" said Gwinne.

Someone screamed in the dark--and with that scream the mob broke.
Crowding, cursing, yelling, trampling each other, fighting, the
lynchers jammed through the door; they crashed through a fence, they
tumbled over boulders--but they made time. A desultory fusillade
followed them; merely for encouragement.

XII

"Ostrich, _n._ A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature
has denied the hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have
seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working
pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out,
the ostrich does not fly."
--_The Devil's Dictionary._

"Fare you well:
Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you."
--_As You Like It._

Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade paced a narrow beat on the matted floor.
Johnny Dines, shirt-sleeved, in the prisoners' box, leaned forward in
his chair to watch, delighted. Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade was
prosecuting attorney, and the mat was within the inclosure of the
court room, marked off by a wooden rail to separate the law's
machinery from the materi--That has an unpleasant sound. To separate
the taxpayer from--No, that won't do. To separate the performers from
the spectator