Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/54

44 The four gathered together, whispering, inaudibly to Garth; but this tense grouping, this excited council warned him of their only possible answer.

"If you try to rush me," he cried, "or if you try to get out of the room, I'll turn the revolver on the safe and blow the whole lot of us to powder in this pleasant steel shell."

Slim turned, white-faced.

"You wouldn't have the nerve," he said. "After all, you're a bull."

"Just to show you," Garth answered quietly, "I'll put the whole pack on the table. You've called the turn, Slim. I'm that."

He snatched the mask from his face, and took a police whistle from his pocket. He raised it to his lips. He blew a call which he felt would penetrate beyond these steel walls. It was the first unrestrained sound the room had heard that night. It thrilled Garth. It was like a tonic. He laughed outright.

"No more fighting in the dark. Thank God!"

The four men stared with the helpless rage, the abandoned suffering of snared animals.