Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/293

 "Going to keep quiet now?" the big man at her side was inquiring.

Sadie did not even deign to answer that question. She was wondering what form her chance would take when it came. For chances always come, in some shape or other, and if not at one moment, then at another. She could not afford to give up her faith in that.

"Sure she's goin' to keep quiet," was the grim response of the man on the other side of her. His face advanced toward her in the darkness, like the head of a fighting-cock. "For if she can't do it her way, she'll do it ours!"

Sadie, as the car rattled on, pounding over car-tracks and swerving about corners, decided to do it in her own way. She preferred the privilege of breathing. But she decided, in her secret soul of souls, that if it came to a show-down she could do up that smaller man, even though she had to eat his ears off. She could make the runt take the mat. She was sure of it. And the only thing that held her back was the memory of the second man with a hand like a ham. He was a different proposition, that human derrick.

It was this second man who suddenly shouted