“Hands up,” he roared as he advanced, followed closely by the five men who had come to help him make the arrests.
In the brief pause that followed Jack caught a glimpse of a smoke-filled room furnished with dirty, grimy-looking round tables and a big flat piano. The place was crowded with disreputable looking men. They were all swarthy and ugly of feature and Jack appraised them as about the worst looking lot of individuals he had ever set eyes upon.
At the roared command of the warden, every man turned and faced the doorway, and when they saw the leveled revolver, backed up by determined faces and heavy looking clubs, they at once put their hands above their heads. Then before they could recover from their surprise Mr. Williams pointed out four of them with a wave of his revolver, calling each one of them by name.
“You, Salmon Jack, an’ Long Aleck, come out here, an’ you Jean Bastian, and Paul Nez there, come on. You’re all under arrest. I’ve warrants for each one o’--”
Jack heard the rattle of glass and tin and the place was in total darkness! Some one had thrown a chair and smashed the big swinging oil lamp in the center of the room, putting it completely out. And the next instant came the cry:
Things began to happen in earnest after that. Indeed, events transpired so swiftly during the next five minutes that Jack could hardly believe that so much could happen in so short a time. There was the rush of feet and the muttering of the Frenchmen as they closed with the men in the doorway. Then came another rush from the rear as the rest of the posse came up. Jack was quite undetermined what to do. He could hear the voices of his friends and he could hear the curses of the Frenchmen, but for the life of him he could not tell which was which, and indeed for a moment he was helplessly jostled one way and the other by the swaying fighters, and afraid to wield his club for fear of hitting some one of his own party.
But presently a big fist shot out of the darkness and landed a stinging blow on his cheek. That settled the lad’s indecision. The club came down with a whack on the spot where the head behind that hand should have been. And it must have found its mark, for it landed solidly and was immediately followed by an explosion of French oaths.