“Huh? These two git—— Gee, I thought—— Huh!” muttered Bill, blankly looking from boy to girl and then back at Hampton. Ward, too, stared; then, tongue in cheek, looked down again at Steve.
“Git married? Me and Steve?” breathed Marion. “And you—you’re goin’——”
A moan from the floor, a shudder of the ragged body and a trembling of the hands around the gun, cut her short and drew the attention of all. The pale lips twitched; the eyes opened, steadied on Ward’s face. The jaw clicked shut. Steve struggled to rise.
“All right, lad,” Ward said kindly. “We don’t want you. Take it easy. You’re in the clear, and Sanders is croaked, and we’re goin’ out and leave you. Now you’d better git to bed. Hampton, want to put your blankets around him? And shut that back window of yours. We left it open——”
“That’s how you got in?”
“Sure. We spotted that easy-slidin’ window days ago—made a little call here and looked things over again, just for luck. I don’t aim to overlook anything when I’m on a job. So to-night when we heard that cannon go off we took it on the run, looked in here and saw you had got Sanders cornered, and eased ourselves in by that window to git an earful of what you were raggin’ about. It helps a lot sometimes to hear things without lettin’ folks know—— Huh? What’s that, kid?”
Steve was trying to break in. Now he gasped:
“Leave me lay. Go look out for mom. Snake, he mauled her. He went there—’fore he come here. I found her all——”
Marion sprang up with a cry.
“Mom? Snake hurt her?”