CHAPTER XIV
STARRING AS A SECOND-STORY MAN
Darkness engulfed Clay as he closed the trapdoor overhead. Hisexploring feet found each tread of the ladder with the utmost caution.Near the foot of it he stopped to listen for any sound that might serveto guide him. None came. The passage was as noiseless as it was dark.
Again he had that sense of cold finger-tips making a keyboard of hisspine. An impulse rose in him to clamber up the ladder to the safetyof the open-skyed roof. He was a son of the wide outdoors. It wentagainst his gorge to be blotted out of life in this trap like some foulrodent.
But he trod down the panic and set his will to carry on. He creptforward along the passage. Every step or two he stopped to listen,nerves keyed to an acute tension.
A flight of stairs brought him to what he knew must be the secondfloor. To him there floated a murmur of sounds. They came vague andindistinct through a closed door. The room of the voices was on theleft-hand side of the corridor.
He soft-footed it closer, reached the door, and dropped noiselessly toa knee. A key was in the lock on the outside. With infiniteprecaution against rattling he turned it, slid it out, and dropped itin his coat pocket. His eye fastened to the opening.
Three men were sitting round a table. They were making a bluff atplaying cards, but their attention was focused on a door that evidentlyled into another room. Two automatic revolvers were on the table closeto the hands of their owners. A blackjack lay in front of the thirdman. Clay recognized him as Gorilla Dave. The other two werestrangers to him.
They were waiting. Sometimes they talked in low voices. For the mostpart they were silent, their eyes on the door of the trap that had beenbaited for a man Clay knew and was much interested in. Something evilin the watchfulness of the three chilled momentarily his veins. Thesefellows were the gunmen of New York he had read about--paid assassinswhose business it was to frame innocent men for the penitentiary orkill them in cold blood. They were of the underworld, withoutconscience and without honor. As he looked at them through thekeyhole, the watcher was reminded by their restless patience ofmountain wolves lying in wait for their kill. Gorilla Dave satstolidly in his chair, but the other two got up from time to time andpaced the room silently, always with an eye to the door of the otherroom.
Then things began to happen. A soft step sounded in the corridorbehind the man at the keyhole. He had not time to crawl away nor evento rise before a man stumbled against him.
Clay had one big advantage over his opponent. He had been given aninstant of warning. His right arm went up around the neck of his foeand tightened there. His left hand turned the doorknob. Next momentthe two men crashed into the room together, the Westerner rising to hisfeet as they came, with the body of the other lying across his backfrom hip to shoulder.
Gorilla Dave leaped to his feet. The other two gunmen, caught atdisadvantage a few feet from the table, dived for their automatics.They were too late. Clay swung his body downward from the waist with aquick, strong jerk. The man on his back shot heels over head as thoughhe had been hurled from a catapult, crashed face up on the table, anddragged it over with him in his forward plunge to the wall.
Before any one else could move or speak, Lindsay's gun was out.
"Easy now." His voice was a gentle drawl that carried a menace."Lemme be boss of the _rodeo_ a while. No, Gorilla, I wouldn't playwith that club if I was you. I'm sure hell-a-mile on this gun stuff.Drop it!" The last two words came sharp and crisp, for the big thughad telegraphed an unintentional warning of his purpose to dive at theman behind the thirty-eight.
Gorilla Dave was thick-headed, but he was open to persuasion. Eyeshard as diamonds bored into his, searched him, dominated him. Thebarrel of the revolver did not waver a hair-breadth. His fingersopened and the blackjack dropped from his hand to the floor.
"For the love o' Mike, who is this guy?" demanded one of the other men.
"I'm the fifth member of our little party," explained Clay.
"Wot t'ell do youse mean? And what's the big idea in most killin' thechief?"
The man who had been flung across the table turned over and groaned.Clay would have known that face among a thousand. It belonged to JerryDurand.
"I came in at the wrong door and without announcin' myself," said thecattleman, almost lazily, the unhurried indolence of his manner notshaken. "You see I wanted to be on time so as not to keep you waitin'.I'm Clay Lindsay."
The more talkative of the gunmen from the East Side flashed one look atthe two automatics lying on the floor beside the overturned table.They might as well have been in Brazil for all the good they were tohim.
"For the love o' Mike," he repeated again helplessly. "You'rethe--the--"
"--the hick that was to have been framed for house-breaking. Yes, I'mhim," admitted Clay idiomatically. "How long had you figured I was toget on the Island? Or was it yore intention to stop my clock for good?"
"Say, how did youse get into de house?" demanded big Dave.
"Move over to the other side of the room, Gorilla, and join yore twofriends," suggested the master of ceremonies. "And don't make anymistake. If you do you won't have time to be sorry for it. I'llce'tainly shoot to kill."
The big-shouldered thug shuffled over. Clay stepped sideways, watchingthe three gunmen every foot of the way, kicked the automatics into theopen, and took possession of them. He felt safer with the revolvers inhis coat pocket, for they had been within reach of Durand, and thatmember of the party was showing signs of a return to active interest inthe proceedings.
"When I get you right I'll croak you. By God, I will," swore the gangleader savagely, nursing his battered head. "No big stiff from thebushes can run anything over on me."
"I believe you," retorted Clay easily. "That is, I believe you'retellin' me yore intentions straight. There's no news in that to writehome about. But you'd better make that _if_ instead of _when_. Thisis three cracks you've had at me and I'm still a right healthy rube."
"Don't bank on fool luck any more. I'll get you sure," cried Durandsourly.
The gorge of the Arizonan rose. "Mebbeso. You're a dirty dog, JerryDurand. From the beginning you were a rotten fighter--in the ring andout of it. You and yore strong-arm men! Do you think I'm afraid ofyou because you surround yoreself with dips and yeggmen and hop-nuts,all scum of the gutter and filth of the earth? Where I come from menfight clean and out in the open. They'd stomp you out like arattlesnake."
Clay moved back to the door and looked around from one to another, ascorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats--that's what you are, verminthat feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All youcan do is skulk behind cover to take a man when he ain't lookin'."
He whipped open the door, stepped out, closed it, and took the key fromhis pocket. A moment, and he had turned the lock.
From within there came a rush that shook the panels. Clay was alreadybusy searching for Kitty. He tore open door after door, calling herloudly by name. Even in the darkness he could see that the rooms wereempty of furniture.
There was a crash of splintering panels, the sound of a bursting lock.Almost as though it were an echo of it came a heavy pounding upon thestreet door. Clay guessed that the thirty minutes were up and that theRunt was bringing the police. He dived back into one of the emptyrooms just in time to miss a rush of men pouring along the passage tothe stairs.
Cut off from the street, Clay took to the roof again. It would not dofor him to be caught in the house by the police. He climbed theladder, pushed his way through the trapdoor opening, and breatheddeeply of the night air.
But he had no time to lose. Already he could hear the trampling offeet up the stairs to the second story.
Lightly he vaulted the wall and came to the roof door leading down tonumber 123. He found it latched.
The eaves of the roof projected so far that he could not from there geta hold on the window casings below. He made a vain circ
uit of theroof, then passed to the next house.
Again he was out of luck. The tenants had made safe the entranceagainst prowlers of the night. He knew that at any moment now thepolice might appear in pursuit of him. There was no time to lose.
He crossed to the last house in the block--and found himself barredout. As he rose from his knees he heard the voices of men clamberingthrough the scuttle to the roof. At the same time he saw that whichbrought him to instant action. It was a rope clothes-line which ranfrom post to post, angling from one corner of the building to anotherand back to the opposite one.
No man in Manhattan's millions knew the value of a rope or could handleone more expertly than this cattleman. His knife was open before hehad reached the nearest post. One strong slash of the blade severedit. In six long strides he was at the second post unwinding the line.He used his knife a second time at the third post.
Through the darkness he could see the dim forms of men stopping toexamine the scuttle. Then voices came dear to him in the still night.
"If he reached the roof we've got him."
"Unless he found an open trap," a second answered.
With deft motions Clay worked swiftly. He was fastening the rope tothe chimney of the house. Every instant he expected to hear a voiceraised in excited discovery of him crouched in the shadows. But hisfingers were as sure and as steady as though he had minutes before himinstead of seconds.
"There's the guy--over by the chimney."
Clay threw the slack of the line from the roof. He had no time to testthe strength of the rope nor its length. As the police rushed him heslid over the edge and began to lower himself hand under hand.
Would they cut the rope? Or would they take pot shots at him. Hewould know soon enough.
The wide eaves protected him. A man would have to hang out from thewall above the ledge to see him.
Clay's eyes were on the gutter above while he jerked his way down afoot at a time. A face and part of a body swung out into sight.
"We've got yuh. Come back or I'll shoot," a voice called down.
A revolver showed against the black sky.
The man from Arizona did not answer and did not stop. He knew thatshooting from above is an art that few men have acquired.
A bullet sang past his ear just as he swung in and crouched on thewindow-sill. Another one hit the bricks close to his head.
The firing stopped. A pair of uniformed legs appeared dangling fromthe eaves. A body and a head followed these. They began to descendjerkily.
Clay took a turn at the gun-play. He fired his revolver into the air.The spasmodic jerking of the blue legs abruptly ceased.
"He's got a gun!" the man in the air called up to those above.
The fact was obvious. It could not be denied.
"Yuh'd better give up quietly. We're bound to get yuh," an officershouted from the roof by way of parley.
The cattleman did not answer except by the smashing of glass. He hadforced his way into two houses within the past hour. He was now busybreaking into a third. The window had not yielded to pressure.Therefore he was knocking out the glass with the butt of his revolver.
He crawled through the opening just as some one sat up in bed with afrightened exclamation.
"Who--is--s--s--s it?" a masculine voice asked, teeth chattering.
Clay had no time to gratify idle curiosity. He ran through the room,reached the head of the stairs, and went down on the banister to thefirst floor. He fled back to the rear of the house and stole out bythe kitchen door.
The darkness of the alley swallowed him, but he could still hear theshouts of the men on thereof and answering ones from new arrivals below.
Five minutes later he was on board a street car. He was not at allparticular as to its destination. He wanted to be anywhere but here.This neighborhood was getting entirely too active for him.