Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/286

 Teverson. But for Doris and me, I mean; for I knew—and Keeban and his normals knew—that if I had failed to warn Teverson, Doris was there to do it. Consequently, we were to get the gas now; and we were not to get it simply, but impressively as a part of a ceremony of punishment and discipline.

For Doris had done the double cross; she had "speiled" and "spouted"; and not only had she spoiled the biggest job this crowd ever had "on" but by her squeal or her willingness to squeal had made every man here a candidate for the electric chair. That was their judgment and their sentence against her.

It was not a fair judgment, nor a fair sentence, even from their own point of view, I thought. It was strange that, standing there and staring into the glass room, I angered at this more than anything else, that their sentence of her wasn't fair. She never could have agreed to mix in murder; she had mixed with them only for counterfeiting, for her shoving of "the queer"; and through that contact, she had learned of the plot to kill which she could not stand for.

Other flashes of comprehension came to me there, too. Keeban was fast developing, I understood. He'd started, so far as I knew, only