Beth Norvell, page 129 by Randall Parrish
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" and Winston smiled again beneath his stern gray eyes. "That is precisely why I know you will show me all I desire to see. A damn fool might possibly be tempted to take chances with this gun, and get hurt, but you are smart enough to understand that I 've got the drop all right, and that I mean business--I mean business." These words were uttered slowly, deliberately, and the foreman involuntarily dropped his lids as though feeling them physically, the fingers of his uplifted hands clinching.
"What--what is it ye want to see?"
"That tunnel you 've got concealed by falsework."
Burke spat against the rock wall, the perspiration standing forth on his forehead. But Irish pugnacity made him stubborn.
"Who tould ye that loie? Shure, an' it's not here ye 'll be apt to foind the loikes o' that, me man."
Winston eyed him scornfully.
"You lie, Burke; I saw it with my own eyes just beyond that second turn yonder. You cannot play with me, and the sooner you master that fact the better. Now, you can take your choice--lead on as I order, and keep your men away, or eat lead. It's one or the other within the next sixty seconds. Turn around!"
No man in his senses would ever doubt the determined purpose lying behind those few low-spoken, earnest words. Whoever this man might be, whatever his purpose, he was assuredly not there in sport, and Burke wheeled about as though some concealed spring controlled his action.
"Good," commented Winston, briefly. "You can lower your hands. Now, walk straight forward, speaking only when I tell you, and never forget there is a gun-barrel within two feet of your back. The slightest movement of treachery, and, God helping me, Burke, I 'll turn loose every cartridge into your body. I don 't want to do it, but I will."
They moved slowly forward along the deserted tunnel, not unlike two convicts in lock-step. Burke sullenly growling, a burly, shapeless figure under the light in his hat; Winston alert, silent, watchful for treachery, the g