Bender looked out and nodded.
“Yeah,” he said; “the cook must of left in a hurry.”
Patton kept raving like a mad man and would have jumped out of the car but he knew that would be exactly what Tom Bender wanted for the big Ranger was waiting for a chance to mow him down.
When he returned to the hotel forty-five minutes later the main street was nearly deserted. The great wide glow that had spread over the heavens had attracted everybody and the fire had become the chief interest.
Bender went to sleep with his automatic under his pillow.
But his sleep was fuddled and semiconsciously he knew why. He had gone to bed wound up and taut and that was bad business. It had happened before and he had had bad dreams but even while he was having the dreams he was conscious of the reason. He always told himself the next time he got in a fight he would sit around and cool off before he went to bed but always in the morning he had forgotten.
Only half asleep, he heard noises. Somebody was raising the windows.
He lay still and prized his eyelids up a little and saw two shadowy forms coming through from the fire-escape. In a moment they were still and he lay there, hardly breathing, until the white beam of a flashlight struck him in the face.
He had the impulse to jump up and cover them but he had sense enough to fight that back because he knew they were waiting for him and ready and he wasn't.
They slowly walked over and he could tell from the way they held the light that they were nervous too.