John recognized the men as deputy sheriffs and for a moment he was nonplussed. Then he stepped forward to explain there was no cause for them to arrest them.
"In the corner, I said, in the corner," shouted the foremost of the deputies, pushing John back. "Get over there or I'll put you there, see!"
John "saw." He stepped back into the corner of the room which the deputy indicated, joining a group of a dozen men herded there by the other deputies who swept through the "saloon." Murphy, beside him, whispered in his ear:
"Don't get excited, kid, it's nuttin'; just another phoney pinch, dat's all."
"But what for?" asked John.
"Loiterin' around a handbook joint. You'll be squared, kid, you'll be squared. Stick with me and you'll come out on top; ten bucks to the good."
One of the deputies marched up to the corner, pushing a young fellow before him.
"Tried to duck out the back door," the deputy explained to his brother officers. He shoved his prisoner into the group in the corner. "I guess that's all of them. Let's get them out of here. Come on, you birds, out the door; step lively and no funny business."
Murphy was at his side as they walked out into the street, guarded on each side by the deputies. A motor truck was backed up to the curb and in it were fifteen or twenty men, young and old, laughing and smoking. A crowd of men and women, spectators to the raid, thronged the sidewalk on either side.
John stepped to the side of one of the deputies.