Lennox, listening fearfully from his cot in the little room off the kitchen, recognized the speaker as Big George Rankin, czar of Geerusalem’s underworld.
“Why, that’s ridiculous,” cried Lex. “Mr. Huntington captured Billy Gee and turned him over to the authorities——”
The roar of voices which had ceased during the brief parley, rose again now, violent and menacing.
“It’s a lie! It’s a lie! I ain’t bin friends with the measly skunk,” moaned Lemuel. Mrs. Liggs was staring at him, in a dumb, bewildered way.
Dot still watched the door. Her eyes were glittering dangerously, her whole manner betokening cool, desperate determination. Lex, unused to frontier crises of this kind, had left his revolver in his room. He now ran in to get it and found that the men on the porch were trying the windows. He had barely discovered this fact, when a revolver ripped suddenly down through the panes, showering him with glass. At the same instant, he heard the kitchen door fall in with a crash. Rushing back into the hall, he was just in time to come under a bristling array of leveled guns in the hands of bandanna-masked men, trained on the Huntington household.
In a trice, Dot was disarmed and Lemuel hurled into his room to dress. The place was quickly overrun by the mob, rummaging and ransacking bureaus, closets, trunks. Even the cupboard was swept clean. To Lex, it seemed as if they went about their work with a thoroughness that was almost painstakingly vicious. It was as if they were following out some plan to render the house untenantable, to strip its owner of his belongings.
Rankin, big and burly, his cruel eyes fiery over his red mask, stopped before Dot.
“You be on your way out of the country before morning, kid! Get me?” he growled. “And take this old dame along with you,” indicating the half-fainting Mrs. Liggs whom the girl held in her arms. “Get out and stay out!” He turned to Lex. “As for you, Mr. Sangerly, you’ve got a room in the Miners’ Hotel. See that you occupy it, if you’re not looking for a coat of tar. Outside, gang, and clean up the works!”
The majority of the mob went trooping away in obedience to the command, and presently Lex heard sounds which proclaimed the destruction of the outbuildings, coupled with the frantic clamor of the occupants of coop and sty.
A man hurried in from the kitchen and beckoned Rankin to one side. “Lennox’s layin’ in there with a busted leg,” he whispered.