trate trusties, swinging his revolver from side to side. The confidence-man, tiptoeing backward, was coming slowly toward 9009.
He was crouching in the doorway between the two corridors, face forward, his sinews aching with the contagion of action; but his big knotted hands were pressed hard, white-knuckled, upon the sides of the doorway, and “the copper, the copper,” he was murmuring. A shout came to him from behind. He threw a glance over his shoulder; he had a fleeting glimpse of his cell-mate’s black face peering at him out of his cell with a shocked expression; and, further down, Shorty Hayes, the shock-headed little safe-cracker, was also looking at him out of his cell, his face all a-gape with a queer sneering laughter. His eyes plunged ahead again, into the outer corridor. Nichols was slowly nearing him, still walking backward, on tiptoe. Suddenly his hand rose; a shot cracked close; a hot spark of powder stung 9009’s cheek; the burglar seemed to sink out of sight—and the confidence-man, bending, passed beneath 9009’s outstretched
