Before they reached the door Larsen turned again.

"Watch Jerry Bent," he said softly. "You watch him, Denver, and you,
Sandersen. Me and Buck will take care of Cold Feet. He may fight like a
rat. That's the way with a coward when he gets cornered." Then he
strode toward the door.

"How thick is Sally Bent with this schoolteaching gent?" asked Riley
Sinclair of Mason.

"I dunno. Nobody knows. Sally keeps her thinking to herself."

Larsen kicked open the door and at the same moment drew his
six-shooter. That example was also imitated by the rest, with the
exception of Riley Sinclair. He hung in the background, watching.

"Gaspar!" called Larsen.

There was a voice of answer, a man's thin voice, then the sharp cry of
a girl from the interior of the house. Sinclair heard a flurry of
skirts.

"Hysterics now," he said into his mask.

She sprang into the doorway, her hands holding the jamb on either side.
In her haste the big white handkerchief around her throat had been
twisted awry. Sinclair looked over the heads of Mason and Denver Jim
into the suntanned face that had now paled into a delicate olive color.
Her very lips were pale, and her great black eyes were flashing at
them. She seemed more a picture of rage than hysterical fear.