She was aroused by the sound of hammering. Peeping over the edge of the stack, she recognized Tom McHale. McHale was putting a strand of wire around the stack, and as she looked he began to sing a ballad of the old frontier. Clyde had never heard "Sam Bass," and she listened to McHale's damaged tenor.
"Sam was born in Indianner, it was his native home,
And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam;
And first he went to Texas, a cowboy for to be—
He robs the stage at——"
He stopped abruptly, and Clyde saw two mounted men approaching. They bore down on McHale, who lifted his coat from a rail, and put it on. To Clyde's amazement the action revealed a worn leather holster strapped to the inner side of the garment, and from it protruded the ivory butt of a six-shooter. McHale was apparently unarmed; in reality a weapon lay within instant reach of his hand.
The two horsemen were roughly dressed. Each wore a gun openly at his belt. One was large, sandy-haired, gray-eyed. The other was dark, quick, restless, shooting odd, darting glances from a pair of sinister black eyes.
"Is your name Dunne?" asked the first roughly.
"Dunne?" queried McHale, as if the name were strange to him. "Did you say Dunne, or Doane?"
"I said Dunne."