His muscles were of steel, his nerves were of iron; he was sure of himself, absolutely sure. He felt that he could kill, that no one, not God Himself, could keep him from killing. He could kill when he pleased. He could not miss, of that he was incredibly sure; in his arms, already, in his arms, in his eye, in his trigger-finger, he had the feel of the coming kills.
He groped again into the pipe; his hands found three things: first, a rope, coiled, at one end of which dangled a grappling hook; then a revolver, then a box of ammunition. He coiled the rope about his waist. The revolver was a long heavy single-action six-shooter, of the pattern he had always liked. He tucked it beneath his waist-band. The cartridges he dropped, loose, into one of his pockets. Then he stood, erect, in the alley, close to the wall of the cook-house.
Dawn was coming in the east, a sullen dawn. It coloured lightly the scale-tips of a mackerel sky, and then, with weird swiftness, painted perpendicularly three great red bars across the
