"Open the door, Pat, for God's sake!" he whispered, pressing his face to the glass. "Rube's gone crazy, I think, and I'm almost perished with the cold."
"Be the pipers! an's there's suthin' gone wrong!" muttered the saloon-keeper. "It's the ould boy himself that's to pay, I'm afeard."
He hastily undid the fastening of the door.
Callister and Tisdale entered the saloon.
"Some whisky, quick, Pat," exclaimed the former, his teeth chattering as he spoke. "We have had Satan's own time of it getting here, and you must give us a shake down for the balance of the night."
"An' I'll do that same wid pleasure, Mr. Callister," cried the Irishman, with the good nature proverbial of his race, as he bustled behind the bar. "Howly mother! but yer gills is as blue as indigo. What happened ye that ye lost the coat an' the hat?"
"It's a story that'll take too long to tell, Pat. There, that's better"—he had emptied the glass of raw spirits at a gulp. "Now show us where we can sleep."
"It's no use, Lije," said Tisdale gloomily. "You had best light out and save yourself while you can. I shall have no peace until poor Maria's death is avenged. I'm going now to give myself up to the police; to see the spirit of my murdered wife again would kill me. I can't stand it any longer and I won't. As I told you before, I'm the Jonah of the gang."
The eyes of Elijah Callister blazed with evil light.
"You are, eh?" he hissed between his tightly set teeth. "So you are going to give yourself up, and ruin your friends, you soft-hearted fool—you man of putty—you—you—— Ain't it enough to have lost these plans, to have gone through what we have, without——"