The others bore down upon Gratton. He had found his voice now; he shrieked at them; he begged shrilly; he battered them with his fists, striking weak, vain blows. Benny, though the smaller man, had him by the collar. The Italian caught an arm, and as they dragged him half-fainting toward the fire, Brail struck at him with a heavy boot.
"So," said Brodie heavily.
Gratton began an incoherent pleading, arrested impatiently by Brodie's great voice.
"Shut up! You've had your innings; it's mine now. You swiped grub when it's the same thing as slitting a man's gullet. You let another man be killed for what you done. Now you get yours!"
He jerked up his rifle. Benny and the Italian let Gratton go and jumped nimbly aside. Gratton stumbled and sagged, staggering like a drunken man. Brodie, with his rifle-barrel not six feet from Gratton's terror-stricken body, laughed again.
"Stop!" Gloria shrilled. She broke away from Jarrold's grasp and ran toward Brodie. "You don't know what you are doing. You——"
"Close your trap, kid," Brodie thundered at her. "Unless you want the second bullet."
Jarrold's big boots came clumping noisily across the rock floor.
"Easy does it, Brodie," he shouted. "She ain't no kid, I tell you. She's a girl. That's Ben Gaynor's girl, the one Gratton wanted to marry, the one King took away from him. Keep your eye peeled; King would be around somewhere!"
"Hidin' back there in the dark somewhere," muttered Benny.