“Good gal!” A freezing chuckle sounded at the shattered frame. “Don’t ye kill him less’n he jumps—he’s mine! I got to talk to him a minute ’r so, an’ then—— Hamp, shove up the winder! I’m a-comin’ in.”
“Can’t, Steve,” Douglas replied mechanically. “Never could get this sash up. It’s warped solid. Come around.”
The fierce face hung in the dimness a moment longer before it moved. Then, reluctantly: “Awright, if I gotta I gotta. But ye watch him close! He’s a snake—if he moves bust him!”
As the barrel withdrew Snake darted desperate glances at the pair. He saw a tense, ready girl, flame-haired, flame-eyed, holding him at bay like an angel of vengeance; a grim-jawed man who once before had knocked him senseless, who had been relentlessly trailing him for many days, who now stood alert and all too eager to avenge three attempts on his life. But if he could only dodge that one barrel and dive through the window——
“Don’t try it!” the hard voice of Hammerless Hampton warned. “If she should miss you I wouldn’t! I’m only holding off because you’re Steve’s meat. Make one little move and——”
The threat of the hovering chair was all too plain.
Snake licked his thin lips, shot a look doorward—then shrank back as if trying to merge himself with the unyielding wall. A moment ago he had plumbed the hot eyes of Wrath. Now he looked into the stony countenance of Revenge.
Steve was in the room. Steve, born like a wolf, wild as a wolf, now was merciless as a wolf. Through his matted black hair his cavernous eyes glared in concentrated hate; across his bristle-bearded mouth stretched a fang-toothed grin; in his creeping step was the stiffness of a timber-wolf about to leap and rend. At his hip hung the battered double gun of dead Nigger Nat, hammers back like the heads of striking serpents, triggers tense under wasted fingers, muzzles slipping with nerve-shattering slowness toward the vitals of the cornered betrayer and murderer. So appalling was the utter ferocity of that shambling figure that Marion’s face paled and her weapon sank, while even Douglas felt ice crawl down his spine.
“Three year!” the avenger rasped through his teeth. “Three year I done for ye! I’d ’a’ died, only I swored I’d git ye, Snake—I’d git ye ’spite o’ bars an’ walls an’ guards an’ all hell! An’ now’s yer time to pay! Ye’re gone!”
Snake’s face writhed again. Desperately he strove to avert his doom.