Another match lighted them into the living-room, where they locked the front door and took stock of their surroundings. There was a candle in the neck of a bottle on the table, which Brick lighted. The front and side windows were nailed down and heavily curtained.
“How’s the shoulder?” asked Brick.
Harp flexed his arm carefully and grimaced a little.
“It ain’t goin’ to stop me,” he declared. “But it sure had me guessin’. My shirt’s all blood, but the cut is sealed shut.”
The Mostano family kept house in one room only. There was a rusty cook-stove, on which was a greasy looking stew-kettle and a battered frying-pan. A home-made table fitted into one corner, on which was piled the rest of their utensils. In the other corner was a built-in bunk, with a collection of tumbled blankets.
The floor was filthy and the air was filled with odors of long-departed food. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling in profusion.
“Ugh!” grunted Harp disgustedly. “What a place to live!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” grinned Brick. “And what a place to die.”
Harp laughed and laid his six-shooter across his knees, as he tried to roll a cigaret.
“Let me do that,” said Brick. “Yore hand ain’t workin’ so good.”