Rathburn leaned down suddenly and with lightning swiftness jerked Lamy’s gun from its holster near his side. He tossed the weapon to a corner of the dark cellar just as the sheriff’s voice was heard again.
“Coyote, if you’re down there I’m not going to take a chance fumbling with that door. If you ain’t there, then there won’t be any harm in what I’m going to do. If I don’t hear anything when I finish talking I’m going to give the signal to my men to start shooting through the floor––and I mean it. If anybody’s down there it’d be good sense to flip up that door and crawl out hands first, an’ those hands empty.”
“Sheriff, you’re bluffing!” said Rathburn loudly.
Then the sheriff spoke again in an exultant tone. “I figured it was the best hidin’ place you could find, Coyote. You’re right; I was sort of bluffing, but I might have changed my mind an’ gone on through with it. We’ve got you dead to rights, Coyote; you haven’t got a chance. There’s seven of us now an’ every man is ready to open up if you come out of there a-shooting.”
Rathburn slipped his gun back into his holster. He raised the trapdoor slowly until it tipped back on the floor leaving the opening into the cellar clear.
“Two of ’em!” he heard some one exclaim.
He looked up to accustom his eyes to the light and saw a dozen guns covering him.
“Gentlemen, the landscape fairly bristles with artillery,” he said amiably. “Who’s the sheriff? And––there’s Jud Brown. Who let you loose, Jud?”
“I’m Sheriff Neal,” interposed that individual, a slight, dark man with a bristly mustache. “Come out of there––hands free.”