Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/91

 Neither Clair nor Lander had time to distinguish individuals. With their eyes more accustomed to the darkness they made out a frantic mass of milling men, and thrust their knives at random where they found their way blocked by the surging bodies.

"To the door!" yelled Lander to recall Papa Clair from his Berserk rage.

The old man remembered their purpose was to escape and shifted his advance, swinging his knife in an arc before him and leaving it for his pupil to guard the flanks. When first precipitated into the conflict Lander was heart-sick at the thought of bloodshed; now he was committed to it. Once he had heard the grunts of the two stabbing the empty bed, he knew only one sensation, to hack his way clear of the beasts who for a few pieces of silver had come to murder an inoffensive stranger.

Cursing and screaming, the hired assassins found their very numbers blocking them. Then one voice rose above the hubbub, yelling:

"That ol' devil of a Clair's here! Look out fer that knife!"

"In your throat!" shrilly cried Papa Clair, and he seemed to straighten out in mid-air, his