Unlocked, unbolted, not even latched, the door flung wide at the first touch, and whirled crashing back against the wall; the crew of the battering ram, braced for a shock, fell sprawling across the threshold. Reserves from the sides sprang over them, too eager to note the ominous ease of that door forcing, and plunged into the silent darkness of the jail.
They stiffened in their tracks. For a shaft of light swept across the dark, a trembling cone of radiance, a dancing light on the clump of masked men who shrank aside from that shining circle, on a doorway where maskers crowded in. A melancholy voice floated through the darkness.
“Come in,” said Gwinne. “Come in—if you don’t mind the smoke.”
The lynchers crowded back, they huddled against the walls in the darkness beyond that cone of dazzling light.
“Are you all there?” said Gwinne. His voice was bored and listless. “Shaw, Ellis, Clark, Clancy, Tucker, Woodard, Bruno, Toad Hales—”
“I want Sim!” announced Charlie See’s voice joyously. “Sim is mine. Somebody show me which is Sim! Is that him pushin’ back toward the door?”
A clicking sound came with the words, answered by similar clickings here and there in the darkness.
“Tom Ross has got Sim covered,” said the unhurried voice of Spinal Maginnis. “You and Hiram Yoast be sure to get that big fellow in front. I got my man picked.”
A chuckle came from across the way. “You, Vet Blackman! Remember what I told you? This is me—Buck Hamilton. You’re my meat!”
“Oh, keep still and let me call the roll,” complained Gwinne’s voice—which seemed to have shifted its position. “Kroner, Jody Weir, Eastman, Wiley, Hover, Lithpin Tham—”