"Sirs," he said, "if you keep me here you will most certainly have to harm me."
A figure ran around the edge of the crowd and stood beside him.
"Stand clear of me, Sally," he muttered, much moved. "Stand away. This is a man's work."
"The work of a pack of coyotes!" she cried shrilly. "What d'ye mean?"
"Are you goin' to murder a tenderfoot among you? One that ain't done no real harm? I don't believe my eyes. You, there, Shorty Kilrain, I've waited on you with my own hands. You've played the man with me. Are you goin' to play the dog now? Jansen, you was tellin' me about a blue-eyed girl in Sweden; have you forgot about her now? And Calamity Ben! My God, ain't there a man among you to step over here and join the two of us?"
They were shaken, but the memory of Drew quelled them.
"They's no harm intended him, on my honour, Sally," said Lawlor. "All he's got to do is give up his gun--and--and"--he finished weakly--"let his hands be tied."
"Don't follow me, Sally," said Bard. "Stay out of this. Boys, you may have been paid high, but I don't think you've been paid high enough to risk taking a chance with me. If you put me out with the first shot that ends it, of course, but the chances are that I'll be alive when I hit the floor, and if I am, I'll have my gun working--and I won't miss. One or two of you are going to drop."
He surveyed them with a quick glance which seemed to linger on each face.
"I don't know who'll go first. But now I'm going to walk straight for that door, and I'm going out of it."
He moved slowly, deliberately toward the door, around the table. Still they did not shoot.
"Bard!" commanded the voice which had spoken from nowhere before. "Stop where you are. Are you fool enough to think that I'll let you go?"
"The son of John Bard. Are you in this house?"
"I am; Bard, listen to me for thirty seconds----"
"Not for three. Sally, go out of this room and through that door."
There was a grim command in his voice. It started her moving against her will. She paused and looked back with an imploring gesture.
And she passed out of the door and stood there, a glimmering figure against the night. Still there was not a shot fired, though all those guns were trained on Bard.
"You've got me Drew," he called, "but I've got you, and your hirelings--all of you, and I'm going to take you to hell with me--to hell!"