“An’ I figgered you was a coward,” he remarked. “Man, you’re a wild cat!”
“Aw, heck,” said Nick as he grasped the hand and pulled himself erect, “you’d ’a’ done me up easy, if you hadn’t been all in from diggin’. An’ say, Jim,” he snickered again—“I thought you’d gone crazy! Honest I did. I was that scared I—”
Henderson had reached out to unlatch the door when the wooden handle lifted seemingly of its own volition. The heavy door swung inward with a rush, and three men leaped into the shack.
“Put ’em up!” said the leader, greasy-looking and fat.
“What—” began Henderson in utter bewilderment.
Then he caught the gleam of an automatic, and his hands rose reluctantly above his head. Nick, after a suddenly suppressed motion toward the shelf, followed suit dumbly.
The other invaders came forward, each with a snowshoe thong formed into a noose. They deftly slipped these over the upstretched hands, drew them tight with a jerk and tied them.
“Now, then, hands down—way down,” went on the fat man.
The thongs’ free ends were tied with painstaking care to their wearers’ ankles.
“Bring ’em over here where we can look at ’em.”