“Don’t mention it,” drawled Flick; “but I don’t just sabe why you didn’t take us when we drove up.  You had the whole bunch of us then.”

“We’re taking no chances,” Hanson winked knowingly.  “The boys up here have been having a pretty long, dull winter, and such a move on our part might have given them the idea that we were trying to break up their fun this evening, which they wouldn’t have stood for.  Then, old Gallito’s popular here, God knows why, and if he’d asked the boys to stand by him and they saw a chance of some excitement, why, we’d have had an unnecessary mix-up.  See?  Not but what we’d have been a good deal more than equal to any scrap they could have put up even if led by you and old Gallito, but the sheriff didn’t want any trouble of that kind when it was so easy to avoid it.”

“Good sense,” commended Flick, “but are you so sure you’ve entirely side-stepped that danger?  There’s after-the-ball-is-over still to be considered.”

“Trust old uncle wiseacre over there for that,” said Hanson vaingloriously, and nodding as he spoke toward the sheriff, who leaned big and calm and watchful against the door at the back of the room.  “He’s a born general.  The plan, son, can’t be beat.  They know he’s in the Pearl’s dressing room and they got the building well surrounded on the outside.  I guess it’s a scheme that even such crafty crooks as Gallito and—­” He paused and quailed a little under Flick’s steady regard, the “you” he had meant to say died on his lips.  From neither victor nor victim did Bob Flick ever permit a familiarity.  “Yes, there’s no getaway possible,” he substituted hastily.  “It’d be foolish of you boys to try and put up a fight.”

“I guess you’re right,” agreed Flick.  “I guess we’re too old and stiff and tired to draw our guns unless there’s a chance for us, anyway.”  Flick rose with his usual languor.  “Well, so long Mr.——­ your name sure does escape me.”  He strolled back to his companions, resuming his seat in his usual unhurried and indifferent way.  The curtains had not yet parted, so he took occasion to relate to Gallito and Seagreave the result of his conversation with Hanson, careless of the fact that the latter sat watching them, gloating with malicious amusement over the spectacle of the three of them so hopelessly entangled in the net and yet engaging in the futile discussion of methods of escape.

As Bob Flick whispered the scheme to the two men the gloom deepened on Gallito’s face.  It seemed to him too comprehensive and efficacious to evade.  But Harry did not share his depression.  As he listened his face changed and set.  In his eyes was a flash like sunlight on steel.  He was the old Seagreave again whom Jose had once described to Gallito.  The Seagreave whose mind worked with lightning rapidity, who ventured anything, as gay and invincible he fought in the last ditch, his back to the wall and all the odds against him.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said.  “It may not work, but it’s a chance.”  He bent forward and in a rapid whisper outlined his plan for them.  “I wonder,” he said, “if they’d nab me if I started to go over and talk to Hughie?  Do you suppose they would permit me a word with him?”