There was a pause. “Will you do a little barking, so I can tell where you are?” It was Mack’s voice again.
Mack saw, then, the place from which his friends were shooting and a few seconds later was among them.
“Thanks,” he said. “Pete McGowan and his men are in there looking for trouble.”
“Well, they’ll find it,” and Smiles smiled his broadest.
“Better come out, Pete. We’re too many for you,” the foreman called. Shots answered him. The men from the outside did not waste any shots. They crept closer.
“Say, Smiles,” called out Pete, “if we come out, we want your promise that there is not going to be any hanging, but that you’ll turn us over to the Mounted Police. We want you to promise that, otherwise we might as well fight.”
THE MEN FROM THE OUTSIDE CREPT CLOSER
“That’s fair,” answered Smiles. “I promise you.”
“All right, then, we’ll come.”