se he had not possessed a gun and therefore could not have
committed the blunder of shooting the man.

"Aw, can that stuff! You're as much to blame as anybody," snapped the
man nearest him, and gave the croaker a vicious jab with his elbow.

"Don't believe that guy got hep to our number! Didn't have time," an
optimist found courage to declare.

"What darn fool was it that shot first? Oughta be crowned for that!"

"Aw, the boob started it himself! He fired on us--and we were only
joshing!"

"He got his, all right!"

"Don't believe we killed him--sure, he was more scared than hurt," put
in the optimist dubiously.

"No-body home," croaked the solemn one again, having recovered his
breath.

They wrangled dismally and unconvincingly together, but no one put
into speech the fear that rode them hard. Fast as Jack drove, they
kept urging him to "Step on 'er!" A bottle that had been circulating
intermittently among the crowd was drained and thrown out on the
boulevard, there to menace the tires of other travelers. The keen wind
whipped their hot faces and cleared a little their fuddled senses, now
that the bottle was empty. A glimmer of caution prompted Jack to drive
around through Beverly Hills and into Sunset Boulevard, when he might
have taken a shorter course home. It would be better, he thought, to
come into town from another direction, even if it took them longer to
reach home. He was careful to keep on a quiet residence street when he
passed through. Hollywood, and he turned at Vermont Avenue and drove
out into Griffith Park, swung into a crossroad and came out on a road
from Glendale. He made another turn or two, and finally slid into Los
Angeles on the main road from Pasadena, well within the speed limit
and with his heart beating a little nearer to normal.

"We've been to Mount Wilson, fellows. Don't forget that," he warned
his passengers. "Stick to it. If they got our number back there we can
bluff them into thinking they got it wrong. I'll let yuh out here and
you can walk home. Mum's the word--get that?"

He had taken only a passive part in the egregious folly of their play,
but they climbed out now without protest, subdued and willing to own
his leadership. Perhaps they realized suddenly that he was the
soberest man of the lot. Only once had he drunk on the way home, and
that sparingly, when the bottle had made the rounds. Like whipped
schoolboys the six slunk off to their homes, and as they disappeared