Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/139

Rh sheriff. “My God, Vic, why ain't the moon jest a mite nearer the full!”

After that, not a word for a long time until the lights in the house were suddenly extinguished.

“So they won't show up agin no background when they make their run,” murmured the sheriff. He pushed up his hat brim so that it covered his eyes more perfectly. “Boys, get ready. They're comin' now!”

Mat Henshaw took up the word, and repeated it, and the whisper ran down the line of men who lay irregularly among the rocks, until at last Sliver Waldron brought it to a stop with a deep murmur. Not even a whisper could altogether disguise his booming bass. It seemed to Vic Gregg that the air about him grew more tense; his arm muscles commenced to ache from the gripping of his hands. Then a door creaked—they could tell the indubitable sound as if there were a light to see it swing cautiously wide.

“They're goin' out the back way,” interpreted the sheriff, “but they'll come around in front. They ain't any other way they can get out of here. Pass that down the line, Mat.”

Before the whisper had trailed out half its course, a woman screamed in the house. It sent a jag of lightning through the brain of Vic Gregg; he started up.

“Get down,” commanded the sheriff 'curtly. “Or they'll plant you.”

“For God's sake, Pete, he's killin' his wife—an'—he's gone mad—I seen it comin' in his eyes!”