sinister menace.

Dave rose to go. At the same time the door in front of him was jerked
open. He pushed his forty-five into Miller's fat ribs.

"What's yore hurry? Stick up yore hands--stick 'em up!"

The boy was backing along the passage as he spoke. He reached the newel
post in that second while Miller was being flung aside by an eruption of
men from the room. Like a frightened rabbit Dave leaped for the stairs,
taking them three at a time. Halfway up he collided with a man flying
down. They came together with the heavy impact of fast-moving bodies. The
two collapsed and rolled down, one over the other.

Sanders rose like a rubber ball. The other man lay still. He had been put
out cold. Dave's head had struck him in the solar plexus and knocked the
breath out of him. The young cowpuncher found himself the active center
of a cyclone. His own revolver was gone. He grappled with a man, seizing
him by the wrist to prevent the use of a long-barreled Colt's. The
trigger fell, a bullet flying through the ceiling.

Other men pressed about him, trying to reach him with their fists and to
strike him with their weapons. Their high heels crushed cruelly the flesh
of his stockinged feet. The darkness befriended Dave. In the massed mêlée
they dared not shoot for fear of hitting the wrong mark. Nor could they
always be sure which shifting figure was the enemy.

Dave clung close to the man he had seized, using him as a shield against
the others. The pack swayed down the hall into the wedge of light thrown
by the lamp in the room.