omfield bleated in frenzied terror as Clay dashed
forward. A chair swung round in a sweeping arc. As it descended the
spitting of the gun slashed through the darkness a second time.

"Slim" Jim went down, rolled over, lay like a log.

Some one dived for Lindsay and drove him against the wall, pinning him
by the waist. A second figure joined the first and caught the
cattleman's wrist.

Then the lights flashed on again. Clay saw that the man who had flung
him against the partition was Gorilla Dave. A plain-clothes man with a
star had twisted his wrist and was clinging to it. Bromfield was
nowhere to be seen, but an open door to the left showed that he had
found at least a temporary escape.

A policeman came forward and stooped over the figure of the prostrate
man.

"Some one's croaked a guy," he said.

Gorilla Dave spoke up quickly. "This fellow did it. With a chair. I
seen him."

There was a moment before Lindsay answered quietly. "He shot twice.
The gun must be lying under him where he fell."

Already men had crowded forward to the scene of the tragedy, moved by
the morbid curiosity a crowd has in such sights. Two policemen pushed
them back and turned the still body over. No revolver was to be seen.

"Anybody know who this is?" one of the officers asked.

"Collins--'Slim' Jim," answered big Dave.

"Well, he's got his this time," the policeman said. "Skull smashed."

Clay's heart sank. In that noise of struggling men and crashing
furniture very likely the sound of the shots had been muffled. The
revolver gone, false testimony against him, proof that he had
threatened Collins available, Clay knew that he was in desperate
straits.

"There was another guy here with him in them glad rags," volunteered
one of the gamblers captured in the raid.

"Who was he?" asked the plain-clothes man of his prisoner.

Clay was silent. He was thinking rapidly. His enemies had him trapped
at last with the help of circumstance, Why bring Bromfield into it? It
would mean trouble and worry for Beatrice.

"Better speak up, young fellow, me lad," advised the detective. "It
won't help you any to be sulky. You're up against the electric chair
sure."

The Arizonan looked at him with the level, unafraid eyes of the hills.

"I reckon I'll not talk till I'm ready," he said in his slow drawl.

The handcuffs clicked on his wrists.

CHAPTER XXIX

BAD NEWS

Colin Whitford came into the room carrying a m