He had his own guess on that score, but he wished to appear unsuspicious just now, so he thrust the thing into its holster.
Then deliberately he turned the key in the door and that was, for a time, his last deliberate act. Seizing the fellow who stood nearest him, he swung him forward and held him as a partial shield before his own body.
"Thar's three of ye hyar," he announced in an abruptly ominous voice, "and one of me. Ef any man makes a move ter draw a gun, I aims straightway ter break this feller's neck. Don't let no man move from where he stands at!"
Astonishment enforced a momentary obedience, save that the man upon whose shoulders the gigantic hands lay—not as yet heavily—attempted to squirm away. Iron-like fingers bit into his flesh and, wincing with a smothered yell of pain, he stood trembling. Halloway passed one hand over his hostage's shoulder and drew the pistol from its holster—then he sent the fellow spinning from him like a top, and covered the others, who huddled close together. "Yore guns—grip-fust—an' speedily," he directed, in that still voice that carried terror, and brought immediate obedience.
"Ye promised us—thet ye wouldn't hold us accountable," whined the operator, and Halloway laughed, as he unloaded the captured pistols and tossed them into a corner.
"What I promised war not ter visit no revengeance on ther wrong fellers," he corrected. "Never mind how I knows hit—but I does know thet no message ever come from ther Coal City town marshal. Ther one that did come told about a plot ter lay-way an' rob a woman—an' ther three of ye war in on hit."
The terror of the unaccountable and wholly mystifying situation held them now in its paralysis. In no conceivable way could he have learned these things—yet he knew them and fears crowded as they wondered what else he might know as well.
But Halloway allowed them little leisure for abstract reflection.
"I've done throwed away them guns. I reckon ye knows whether mine's loaded or not—I don't. Now ther four of us air going ter hev a leetle frolic, right hyar an' now—a leetle four-cornered fight—jest fist an' skull fashion."
He walked across and locked the baggage-room door, though it was shuttered from the outside, and dropped the key within his pocket.