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Round the next turn he found his answer. There must have been

present two or three hundred men, mostly miners, and their gazes

all focussed on two figures which stood against a door at the top

of five or six steps. One of the forms was crouched on its knees,

abject, cringing terror stamped on the white villainous face

upturned to the electric light above. But the other was on its

feet, a revolver in each hand, a smile of reckless daring on the

boyish countenance that just now stood for law and order in Mal

Pais.