Red went outside and waited till his brother had drawn forth the quivering man, and Brick Willock had carried out the girl. Then he looked back into the room. "You fellows can stay in here," he said authoritatively. "What we've got to do ain't any easier with a lot of men standing about, looking on."
The man who had relighted the candle, and who crouched to shield it with a hairy hand from the gust, nodded approval. His friends were already gathering together the cards to lose in the excitement of gambling consciousness of what was about to be done. Red closed the door on the scene, and turned to face the light.
The wind came in furious gusts, with brief intervals of calm. There were no clouds, however, and the moon, which had risen not long before, made the prairie almost as light as if morning had dawned. As far as the eye could reach in any direction, nothing was to be seen but the level ground, the unflecked sky, the cabin and the little group near the tethered ponies.
Gledware had already been stationed with his face toward the moon, and Kansas Kimball was calmly examining his pistol. Between them and the horses, Brick Willock had come to a halt, the little girl still sleeping in his powerful arms. Red's eagle eye noted that she had unconsciously slipped an arm about the highwayman's neck, as if by some instinct she would cling the closer to the only one in the band of ten who had spoken for her life.
Red scowled heavily. He had not forgiven Willock for beating him at cards, still less for his persistent opposition to his wishes; and he now resolved that it should be Willock's hand to deal the fatal blow. He had been troubled before tonight by insubordination on the part of this man of bristling whiskers, this knave whose voice was ever for mercy, if mercy were possible. Why should Willock have joined men who were without scruple and without shame? As the leader stared at him sullenly, he reflected that it was just such natures that fail at the last extremity of hardihood, that desert comrades in crime, that turn state's evidence. Yes—Willock would deal the blow, even if Red found it necessary to call all his men from the cabin to enforce the order.
The captain's fears were not groundless. He would have been much more alarmed, could he have known the wonderful thoughts that surged through Willock's brain, and the wonderful emotions that thrilled his heart, at the warm confiding pressure of the arm about his neck.
CHAPTER II
BRICK MAKES A MOVE
As Kansas Kimball raised his weapon to fire, the man before him uttered a cry of terror and began to entreat for his life. In the full light of the dazzling moon, his face showed all the pallor, all the contortions of a coward who, though believing himself lost, has not the resolution to mask his fear. He poured forth incoherent promises of secrecy, ejaculations of despair and frenzied assurances of innocence.