“Are you sure?” The Captain’s tone was tense.
“Can’t be a doubt about it. See that scar like a cross? Couldn’t well miss that, could I? He’s the one all right. And, though I could never prove it, I’d swear he was the one who struck me from the dark.
“And, by all that’s good!” Johnny sprang to his feet. “I’ll get that man! See if I don’t! No man can strike me from the shadows and get away with it!”
“Well, I guess that makes your friend Johnny here one of us. That right, Drew?” the Captain rumbled.
Drew Lane nodded his head.
“Sit down, son,” said the Captain. “I’ll tell you what those pictures mean. Drew here and Tom Howe carry those pictures with them always. So does Joyce, though I don’t know quite where—in her stocking perhaps.”
Joyce smiled.
“We joke at times,” the Captain went on, “but this affair is no joke. Those men are our assignment. They are to be our assignment until every man of them is behind bars or in his grave. You may join us if you will.”
“I will.” Johnny’s voice was low.
The Captain extended his hand as a solemn pledge.