eir owners. A blackjack lay in front of the third
man. Clay recognized him as Gorilla Dave. The other two were
strangers to him.

They were waiting. Sometimes they talked in low voices. For the most
part they were silent, their eyes on the door of the trap that had been
baited for a man Clay knew and was much interested in. Something evil
in the watchfulness of the three chilled momentarily his veins. These
fellows were the gunmen of New York he had read about--paid assassins
whose business it was to frame innocent men for the penitentiary or
kill them in cold blood. They were of the underworld, without
conscience and without honor. As he looked at them through the
keyhole, the watcher was reminded by their restless patience of
mountain wolves lying in wait for their kill. Gorilla Dave sat
stolidly in his chair, but the other two got up from time to time and
paced the room silently, always with an eye to the door of the other
room.

Then things began to happen. A soft step sounded in the corridor
behind the man at the keyhole. He had not time to crawl away nor even
to rise before a man stumbled against him.

Clay had one big advantage over his opponent. He had been given an
instant of warning. His right arm went up around the neck of his foe
and tightened there. His left hand turned the doorknob. Next moment
the two men crashed into the room together, the Westerner rising to his
feet as they came, with the body of the other lying across his back
from hip to shoulder.

Gorilla Dave leaped to his feet. The other two gunmen, caught at
disadvantage a few feet from the table, dived for their automatics.
They were too late. Clay swung his body downward from the waist with a
quick, strong jerk. The man on his back shot heels over head as though
he had been hurled from a catapult, crashed face up on the table, and
dragged it over with him in his forward plunge to the wall.

Before any one else could move or speak, Lindsay's gun was out.

"Easy now." His voice was a gentle drawl that carried a menace.
"Lemme be boss of the _rodeo_ a while. No, Gorilla, I wouldn't play
with that club if I was you. I'm sure hell-a-mile on this gun stuff.
Drop it!" The last two words came sharp and crisp, for the big thug
had telegraphed an unintentional warning of his purpose to dive at the
man behind the thirty-eight.

Gorilla Dave was thick-headed, but he was open to persuasion. Eyes
hard as diamonds bored into h