Across the window of the room two blankets had been hung.  The door into the other front room was open.  Then suddenly the doorway was no longer a black void.  A man stood there—­a fat man with a stomach that hung out over the waistband of his trousers.  There was something very familiar about the figure of that fat man.

The fat man leaned against the doorjamb and pushed back his wide black hat.  The light in the tin can illumined his countenance dimly.  But Racey’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the half darkness.  He was able to recognize Jacob Pooley—­Fat Jakey Pooley, the register of the district, whose home was in Piegan City.

“You ain’t as fast as you used to be,” observed Fat Jakey in a soft whisper.

“Shut up!” hissed the kneeling man, and turned his face for an instant toward Fat Jakey, so that the light shone upon his features.

It was Jack Harpe.

“What’s biting your ear?” Fat Jakey asked, good-naturedly.

“I’ve told you more’n once to let what’s past alone,” grumbled Jack Harpe.

“Hell, there’s nobody around.”

“Nemmine whether they is or not.  You get out of the habit.”

“Rats,” sneered Fat Jakey.

“What was that?” Jack Harpe’s figure tautened in a flash.

“Rats,” repeated Fat Jakey.

“I thought I heard something,” persisted Jack Harpe.

“You heard rats,” chuckled Fat Jakey.  “You’re nervous, that’s what’s the matter, or else you ain’t able to open the safe.”

“I can open the safe all right,” growled Jack Harpe, bending again to his work.

“I wonder what he did hear,” Racey said to himself.  “I thought I heard something, too.”

Whatever it was he did not hear it again.

“There she is,” said Jack Harpe, suddenly, and threw open the safe door.

It was at this precise juncture that a voice from the darkness behind Fat Jakey said, “Hands up!”

Oh, it was then that events began to move with celerity.  Fat Jakey Pooley ducked and leaped.  Jack Harpe kicked the tin can, the candle fell out and rolled guttering in a quarter circle only to be extinguished by one of Fat Jakey’s flying feet.

There was a slithering sound as the blankets across the window were ripped down, followed by a scraping and a heaving and a grunting as two large people endeavoured to make their egress through the same window at the same time.

“So that window was open alla time,” thought Racey as he prudently waited for the owner of the voice in the other room to discover himself.  But this the voice’s owner did not immediately do.  Racey could not understand why he did not shoot while the two men were struggling through the window.  Lord knows he had plenty of time and opportunity.

Even after Jack Harpe and Fat Jakey had reached the outer air and presumably gone elsewhere swiftly, there was no sound from the other room.  Racey, his gun ready, waited.