"Ef ye wants ter send a man out hyar ter parley with me," he shouted through the heavy barrier, "I gives ye my pledge that he kin go back safe. Ef ye don't see fit ter do thet, we've got ter believe thet ye're all one stripe, resistin' arrest, and we aims ter set this hell-house ter ther torch."
"Let me have five minutes ter study erbout hit," Towers gave answer, then he turned to the men inside. "Go upsta'rs, Tom," he directed swiftly, "an' look out. Let me know how many thar seems ter be of 'em."
Carmichael, peering out of dark windows above, saw against the snow, innumerable sable figures bulking formidably in the red flare of blazing pine fagots. Other torches burned with a menacing assurance of power beyond them along the road, and far up the distant slopes glittered reinforcements of scattered tongues of flame.
The figures nearest at hand stood steady with an ominous and spectral stillness, and their ghostliness was enhanced by the fitful torch-light in which the whole picture leaped and subsided with a phantom uncertainty of line and mass.
Black Tom came back and shook his head. "Hit hain't no manner of use," he announced. "We mout es well give up. I reckon we kin still come cl'ar in co'te."
But the old lion, whose jaws and fangs had always proved strong enough to crush, was of no mind to be caged now.
"Come cl'ar! Hell's blazes!" he roared with a livid face. "Don't ye see what's done come ter pass? He'll take these damn' outlaws over thar an' no jury won't dast ter cl'ar us. If we quits now we're done."
Towers leaped, with an astonishing agility to the counter of the bar and raised his clenched fists high above his head.
"Men!" he thundered, "hearken ter me! Don't make no mistake in thinkin' thet ef ye goes out thar, ye'll hev any mercy showed ye. This is ther finish fight betwixt all ther customs of yore blood—an' this damn' outlaw's new-fangled tyranny! He don't aim jest ter jail me an' Tom—he aims ter wipe out every mother's son thet's ever been a friend ter me.
"We've got solid walls around us now—but any man thet goes out thar, goes straight ter murder. Es fer me I don't aim ter be took alive—air ye of ther same mind? Will ye fight?"