The Highgrader

"You ain't got the say here, not by a domned sight, Jack Kilmeny. This'll be the way of it. You'll git out. We'll stay. Understand?" Peale ground out between set teeth.

Jack smiled, but his eyes were like steel. "Suppose we go over to the shaft-house and talk it over, boys. We'll all understand it better then."

Kilmeny still stood close to the red-hot stove. He was opening and closing his fingers to take the stiffness of the frost out of them.

"By Goad, no! You go--we stay. See?"

The young man was now rubbing industriously the thumb and forefinger of his right hand with the palm of his left.

"No, I don't see that, Peale. Doesn't sound reasonable to me. But I'll talk it over with you both--in the shaft-house."

Jack's eyes were fastened steadily on Peale. The man was standing close to a shelf in a corner of the cabin. The shelf was in the shadow, but Kilmeny guessed what lay upon it. He was glad that though his legs were still stiff and cold the fingers of his right hand had been massaged to a supple warmth.

"You be warm now, lad. Clear out," warned the big Cornishman.

"Build 'ee a fire in the tunnel, mon," suggested Trefoyle.

"We'll all go or we'll all stay. Drop that, Peale."

The last words rang out in sharp command. Quicker than the eye could follow Kilmeny's hand had brushed up past his hip and brought with it a shining thirty-eight.

Taken by surprise, Peale stood stupidly, his hand still on the shelf. His fingers had closed on a revolver, but they had found the barrel instead of the butt.

"Step forward to the table, Peale--with your hand empty. That's right. Now listen. These young women have got to sleep. They're fagged to exhaustion. We three are going over to the shaft-house. Anything you've got to say to me can be said there. Understand?"

The man stood in a stubborn sullen silence, but his partner spoke up.

"No guns along, Kilmeny, eh?"

"No. We'll leave them here."

"Good enough, eh, Peale?"

Trefoyle's small eyes glittered. Slyly he winked to his partner to agree, then got a lantern, lit it clumsily, and shuffled out with Peale at his heels.

Joyce clung to Jack's arm, bewitchingly helpless and dependent. A queer thrill went through him at the touch of her soft finger tips.

"You won't leave us," she implored. "You wouldn't, would you?"

"Only for a little while. Bolt the door. Don't open it unless I give the word." He stepped across to Moya and handed her his revolver. In a very low voice he spoke to her. "Remember. You're not to open unless I tell you to let me in. If they try to break the door shoot through it at them waist high. Shoot to kill. Promise me that."