"Come on boys, let's start right in," he invited. "Fer yore own sakes hit's kinderly a pity ye couldn't git these irons offen me … they're right apt ter scar somebody up."
They knew that to get out they must fight their way out—and after all there were three of them. Flinging a heavy chair above his head, the quickest-witted of the trio hurled himself forward to the attack.
From Halloway's eyes shot bolts of Berserker battle-lust, and from under the down-sweep of the clubbed missile he glided as a trout slips away from a startling shadow. Before that assailant had recovered his equilibrium, Halloway had seized him up as a grown man might seize a small child and hurled him headlong at the operator, so that the two went down in a tangle of writhing bodies.
The third had not been idle and as Halloway straightened and wheeled, he met the cyclonic lunge of a snarling adversary with a lifted and wickedly gleaming dirk.
As the knife flashed down, the dodging Goliath felt its sting in his left shoulder—but only with a glancing blow which had been aimed at his throat. Blood was let but no great hurt done save that it roused him to a demoniac fury. The embrace in which the wielder of the blade was folded was like the snapping of a bear-trap and, not slowly but almost instantly, its victim dropped his weapon and hung gasping with broken ribs and stifled lungs.
Halloway cast him aside and wheeled again with lowered head, for two men were at him afresh with whatever things of weight came to their hands. Neither dared pause and desperation had endowed them with a strength as unwonted and exaggerated as that which his frenzy brings to a maniac.
The fallen figure lay quiet enough, but the remaining three swept in tempestuous chaos about the place. The table was wrecked—the furniture shattered—all were bleeding and panting in sob-like brokenness of breath.
Two bore the brand-like marks of handcuffs; the other a great welt across the forehead, left there by the large file, but at the end one figure straightened up—his task ended—and behind him lay three that would not soon be ready to fight again. Then, unlocking the door, Halloway let himself out into the night.
He paused on the platform and drew a long breath and after that, plunging his hands deep into his pockets, he strolled along whistling. But when he had come to the edge of the town and the road toward Wolf-Pen Gap, he broke into a run.
Alexander had stood waiting for a while at the edge of the rock, wondering who these men might be who were approaching with such an extremity of caution. Once more she was called on to endure the heart-chill of suspense, but when finally two figures slipped through the shaft-mouth with cocked rifles thrust out before them that tautness of nerve eased into relaxation. One of them—palpably nervous—was Will Brent. The other, with eyes agleam and an eagerness keyed for battle, was Jerry O'Keefe.