“If you come one inch farther, you beast, I’ll blow your fool head off. This is the second time you have tried to murder me.”
He was in an ugly fighting mood, and his arm was beginning to give him considerable pain. The rest of Ricker’s gang, seeing Jim Haley put out of action and their leader lying on the floor with his feet and hands shackled, lost heart and surrendered.
Bud sent some of the men scouting around for an extra lamp.
“I wonder who shot the lamp out,” the Marshal queried, “it wasn’t done by anybody in this room.”
“I did,” the dwarf spoke up, grinning exultantly. “I was in the cellar and fired through a hole in the floor. Then while the fight was going on I crawled through the window.”
“And well I know it,” Mason said ruefully, “he crept up on me and had me nearly strangled before I knocked him on the head with my gun. He must have a skull like iron.”
The Marshal after a brief struggle snapped a pair of handcuffs on the dwarf’s wrists.
“You are too dangerous a person to be at large, my most excellent engraver.
“This dwarf,” he continued, “was Ricker’s chief engraver.”
Then, noticing Mason’s wound, he called Jean Barry, his deputy, to examine his arm. Jean made a thorough examination.