The committee met at a road-house near the outskirts of the city, but only long enough to hear Yesler’s facts and to appoint another meeting for three hours later at the offices of Eaton. For the committee had come here for secrecy, and they knew that it would be only a short time before Pelton’s heelers would be down upon them in force. It was agreed they should divide and slip quietly back to town, wait until everything was quiet and convene again. Meanwhile Eaton would make arrangements to see that his offices would be sufficiently guarded for protection against any attack.
Yesler walked back to town and was within a couple of blocks of his hotel when he glimpsed two figures crouching against the fence of the alley. He stopped in his tracks, watched them intently an instant, and was startled by a whistle from the rear. He knew at once his retreat, too, was cut off, and without hesitation vaulted the fence in front of a big gray stone house he was passing. A revolver flashed from the alley, and he laughed with a strange kind of delight. His thought was to escape round the house, but trellis work barred the way, and he could not open the gate.
“Trapped, by Jove,” he told himself coolly as a bullet struck the trellis close to his head.
He turned back, ran up the steps of the porch and found momentary safety in the darkness of its heavy vines. But this he knew could not last. Running figures were converging toward him at a focal point. He could hear oaths and cries. Some one was throwing aimless shots from a revolver at the porch.
He heard a window go up in the second story and a woman’s frightened voice ask. “What is it? Who is there?”
“Let me in. I’m ambushed by thugs,” he called back.
“There he is—in the doorway,” a voice cried out of the night, and it was followed by a spatter of bullets about him.
He fired at a man leaping the fence. The fellow tumbled back with a kind of scream.
“God! I’m hit.”
He could hear steps coming down the stairway and fingers fumbling at the key of the door. His attackers were gathering for a rush, and he wondered whether the rescue was to be too late. They came together, the opening door and the forward pour of huddled figures. He stepped back into the hall.