"Oh, damn you and your Committee!" gritted Bill Wilson, out of the
bitterness that filled him. He gave Jack one glance; one, and with his
jaws set hard together, turned his back.

The crowd pushed and parted to make way for him. Jim, his face the
color of a pork rind, followed dog-like at the heels of his boss. And
when they had passed, the tent began to belch forth men who walked
with heads and shoulders a little bent, talking together under their
breaths of this man who dared defy the Committee to its face, and
whose daring was as impotent as the breeze that still pulled at the
flapping corner of the cloth sign over the door of his place.

Bill glanced dully up at the sign before he opened his door. "Better
get the hammer and nail that corner down, Jim," he said morosely,
and went in. He poured a whisky glass two-thirds full of liquor and
emptied it with one long swallow--and Bill was not a drinking man.

"God! This thing they call justice!" he groaned, as he set down the
glass; and went out to make an attempt at organizing a rescue party,
though he had little hope of succeeding. Jack was a stranger to the
better class of business men, and those who did know him were either
friends of the Committee or in deadly fear of it. Still, Bill was
a gambler. He was probably putting the mark of the next victim on
himself; but he did not stop for that.




CHAPTER IV