“Still alive?” asks Magpie.
“I—I don’t know. It ain’t moved for a minute. My ha-hands are paralyzed from squeezing the blasted thing!”
“Get up easy-like,” advises Magpie, “and then jump back.”
“I—I may do it,” whispers Buck.
He takes a breath, eases his feet under him and then jumps high and handsome. He falls over a chair, bumps his head against the bar and collapses on the rail.
“My ——!” he wails. “That was a close shave!”
Then up comes a tangle of green cloth off the card-table, mixed with a striped blanket. It rises to the height of a man and instead of the roar of a man-eating tiger comes these words—
“Let us all arise and sing hymn number sixty-seven.”
The cloth falls away. He stands there, hands folded, and on his face is the look of a man who has made his peace and don’t care what happens.
Buck gets to his feet and weaves forward.