"I didn't hear anything!"
"Something moved."
A bush had slipped from Cleo's hand. She gripped the others with desperation. Ten minutes passed amid a death-like silence. A hundred times she imagined the hand of one of these men feeling for her throat. At last she drew a deep breath.
The men began to move step by step toward the doomed sentinel. They were standing beside the front corner of the jail now waiting panther-like for their prey. They allowed him to pass twice. He stopped at the end of his beat, blew his nose and spoke to himself:
"God, what a lonely night!"
The girl heard him turn, his feet measure three steps on his return and stop with a dull thud. She couldn't see, but she could feel through the darkness the grip of those terrible fingers on his throat. The only sound made was the dull thud of his body on the wet ground.
In two minutes they had carried him into the shadows of a big china tree in the rear and tied him to the trunk. She could hear their sharp order:
"Break those cords now or dare to open your mouth and, no matter what happens, we'll kill you first—just for luck."
In ten minutes they had reported the success of their work to their comrades who were waiting and the men who had been picked for their dangerous task surrounded the jail and slowly took up their appointed places in the shadows.
The attacking group stopped for their final instructions not five feet from the girl's position. A flash of moonlight and she saw them—six grim white and scarlet figures wearing spiked helmets from which fell a cloth mask to their shoulders. Their big revolvers were buckled on the outside of their disguises and each man's hand rested on the handle.