XXII
As Bruce waited, his eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness. He began to see the dim outlines of his fellow occupants of the room,—fully seven brawny men seated in chairs about the walls. "Let's hear you drop your rifle," one of them said.
Bruce recognized the grim voice as Simon's,—heard on one occasion before. He let his rifle fall from his hands. He knew that only death would be the answer to any resistance to these men. Then Simon scratched a match, and without looking at him, bent to touch it to the wick of the lamp.
The tiny flame sputtered and flickered, filling the room with dancing shadows. Bruce looked about him. It was the same long, white-walled room that Dave and Simon had conversed in, after Elmira had first dispatched her message by Barney Wegan. Bruce knew that he faced the Turner clan at last.
Simon sat beside the fireplace, the lamp at his elbow. As the wick caught, the light brightened and steadied, and Bruce could see plainly. On each side of him, in chairs about the walls, sat Simon's brothers and his blood relations that shared the estate with him. They were huge, gaunt men, most of them dark-bearded and sallow-skinned, and all of them regarded him with the same gaze of speculative interest.
Bruce did not flinch before their gaze. He stood erect as he could, instinctively defiant.
"Our guest is rather early," Simon began. "Dave hasn't come yet, and Dave is the principal witness."
A bearded man across the room answered him. "But I guess we ain't goin' to let the prisoner go for lack of evidence."
The circle laughed then,—a harsh sound that was not greatly different from the laughter of the coyotes on the sagebrush hills. But they sobered when they saw that Simon hadn't laughed. His dark eyes were glowing.