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.
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