back he could scarcely help
seeing Starr on that lighted perch, and he would undoubtedly take a shot
at him if he were any man at all and had a spark of loyalty to his
fellows. For Starr's business up there could not be mistaken by the
stupidest greaser in the town.

With the fire to help his cause, Starr craned toward the building and
looked down through the skylight. It had been partly raised for
ventilation, which was needed in that little, inside room, especially
since twelve men were foregathered there, and since every man in the lot
was burning tobacco in some form.

Sommers was there, seated at the end of a table that had been moved
into the center of the room, which brought it directly under the
skylight. He sat facing Starr, and he was reading something to himself
while the others waited in silence until he had finished. His strong,
dark face was grave, his high forehead creased with the wrinkles of
deep thinking. He had a cigar in one corner of his mouth, and he was
absentmindedly chewing it rather than smoking. He looked the leader,
though his clothes were inclined to shabbiness and he sat slouched
forward in his chair. He looked the leader, and their leader those
others proclaimed him by their very silence, and by the way their faces
turned toward him while they waited.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THROUGH THE OPEN SKYLIGHT

Sommers took his cigar from his mouth and laid it carefully down upon the
edge of the table, although he was plainly unconscious of the movement.
He lifted his head with a little toss that threw back a heavy lock of his
jet-black hair. He glanced around the table, and his eyes dominated those
others hypnotically.

"I have here," he began in the sonorous voice and the measured
enunciation of the trained orator, "a letter from our esteemed--and
unfortunate--comrade and fellow worker, Elfigo Apodaca. Without taking
your valuable time by reading the letter through from salutation to
signature, I may say briefly that its context is devoted to our cause and
to the inconvenience which may be entailed because of our comrade's
present incarceration, the duration of which is as yet undetermined.

"Comrade Apodaca expresses great confidence in his ultimate release. He
maintains that young Medina is essentially a traitor, and that his
evidence at the preliminary hearing was given purely in the spirit of
revenge. That Comrade Apodaca will be exonerated fully of the charge of
murder, I myself