Dextry spoke, breathlessly, to Slapjack in the pause which ensued:
“Ain’t he a heller?”
“We’ll go you,” the miners chimed to a man. And the chairman added: “Let’s have Glenister lead this forlorn hope. I am willing to stand or fall on his judgment.” They acquiesced without a dissenting voice, and with the firm hands of a natural leader the young man took control.
“Let’s hurry up,” said one. “It’s a long ‘mush’ and the mud is knee-deep.”
“No walking for us,” said Roy. “We’ll go by train.”
“By train? How can we get a train?”
“Steal it,” he answered, at which Dextry grinned delightedly at his loose-jointed companion, and Slapjack showed his toothless gums in answer, saying:
“He sure is.”
A few more words and Glenister, accompanied by these two, slipped out into the whirling storm, and a half-hour later the rest followed. One by one the Vigilantes left, the blackness blotting them up an arm’s-length from the door, till at last the big, bleak warehouse echoed hollowly to the voice of the wind and water.
Over in the eastern end of town, behind dark windows upon which the sheeted rain beat furiously, other armed men lay patiently waiting—waiting some word from the bulky shadow which stood with folded arms close against a square of gray, while over their heads a wretched old man paced back and forth, wringing his hands, pausing at every turn to peer out into the night and to mumble the name of his sister’s child.