e looked from man to man.

"Well!" cried Boss McGinty at last. "Is he here? Is Birdy Edwards here?"

"Yes," McMurdo answered slowly. "Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy
Edwards!"

There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room
might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The hissing of a
kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white
faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set
motionless with utter terror. Then, with a sudden shivering of glass, a
bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window, while the
curtains were torn from their hangings.

At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged
for the half-opened door. A levelled revolver met him there with the
stern blue eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine Police gleaming behind the
sights. The Boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.

"You're safer there, Councillor," said the man whom they had known as
McMurdo. "And you, Baldwin, if you don't take your hand off your pistol,
you'll cheat the hangman yet. Pull it out, or by the Lord that made
me--There, that will do. There are forty armed men round this house,
and you can figure it out for yourself what chance you have. Take their
pistols, Marvin!"

There was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles. The
men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat round the
table.

"I'd like to say a word to you before we separate," said the man who
had trapped them. "I guess we may not meet again until you see me on the
stand in the courthouse. I'll give you something to think over between
now and then. You know me now for what I am. At last I can put my cards
on the table. I am Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton's. I was chosen to break
up your gang. I had a hard and dangerous game to play. Not a soul, not
one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that I was playing it. Only
Captain Marvin here and my employers knew that. But it's over to-night,
thank God, and I am the winner!"

The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was unappeasable
hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.

"Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my chance
of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and there are
sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this night. I'll tell
you this, that when I was put upon this job I never believed there was
such a so