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"IN THE NAME OF THE LAW" · The Jailer of Souls

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  Chapter ten of The Jailer of Souls by Hamilton Craigie. This Libery Box recording
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  is in the public domain. Read by yog anand The Jailer of Souls,
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  Chapter ten, in the name of the law. It was out Rooke his
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  hand in a lightning step for Anister's coat, turned over the lapal, holding
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  it forward for all to see. On it was a small gold patch,
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  the symbol of the Secret Service. The secret was a secret no longer.
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  How long Rooke had known of it, Anester could not be certain. But
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  now at the growling chorus of swift hate, he veiled his pistol, came
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  up and out. As there came a startling interruption, or rather two,
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  he heard Allison's voice roaring in the narrow room. Hels Bell's, young fellow,
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  I am with you, and you can lay to that, for this
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  one's anyway, you shock and handle yourself, he turned to and the rest.
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  Now you bumps, get going, dick or no, dick. I'll
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  play this hand as she lays, get going. The great hand holding a
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  heavy colt, swung upward on a line with Anister's as the door burst inward
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  with a crush and framed in the opening there showed on a sudden the flaming
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  thatch of the bar tender dell Caane, his coowboy yell echoed throat the room,
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  ice, placing upon the hotel man where he sat. In two strikes,
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  he had joined Anister and bull guns on line. The three fronted the
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  five, who faced them silent tense. Kane's voice came clear, I followed
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  you, mister anist pot They tried to run a biser on you. I'm
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  pulling afraid after to day anyway, mister lun can have his job and welcome
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  now. I've been keeping cases on mister Rooke. He's a curly wolf.
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  Ain't you Rooke? A real bad hombrey? And he can lay to that?
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  But iron't going northwest of nothing? Yeah? Ain't now you damn short
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  horns show some speed, but there was no fighting. Rook Lon and company
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  glowering the hands and plain sight weaponless, they sat in a sullen silence as
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  Anister backing to the doorway, was followed by Ellison and Kane. Outside under
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  pale stars, the giant spoke, I don't aim to be too all fired,
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  honest, mister anister, he said, I throwed in with mister Rooke.
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  That's so, but he has played a door ends against the middle with
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  me. I guess I reckon. I'll be moving out of dry bones in
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  two three hours, he grinned ryly out of the corner of his mouth.
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  You shaw pack a hefty wallop, young fellow. I wish I could tell
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  you something, But that man drook' is as close mouthed as an Indian.
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  And that's whatever his skme. Nobody knows what it is, lun maybe,
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  but they sure got a stranglehold on the county. It won't be healthy for
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  me here. After to night, the three men separated at the hotel,
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  anister entering the lobby with a curious tippers that abruptly deepened to a sudden,
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  crawling fear as a coal boy brought him a note. The fear was not
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  for himself, but for another, for although he had never seen the handwriting
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  before, he knew it upon the instant. Ripping open the envelope with fingers
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  that trembled, he read, and at what he saw, his face paled
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  slowly to a mottled, unhealthy gray partner. If you get this in time,
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  please hurry. I'm in the toils at doctor Elphinston's. It's a stone
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  house at the right of the road leading north from Drybone twenty miles. I
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  think I've bribed a man to take this to you. And if he fails
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  me, God help me, God help us all. If you fail me,
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  you'll never see me again as Mary Allerton. Because the devil's in charge
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  here, and they call him the Jailer of Souls. I'll be watching for
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  you at the south window. You'll know it by the red ribbon on the
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  bars. And now be careful if you get here at night, beware of
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  the gods. There are three. And if it is night, there'll be
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  a rope hanging from the window. You can feel for it in the dark.
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  Now hurry, Mary Allerton, number thirty three. You will never see
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  me again as Mary Ellerton. Annester was away again with that crawling fear,
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  the red ribbon on the barts. The place was in effect a prison then,
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  But number thirty three anster's heart leaped up. He knew the meaning of
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  those numerals well enough. He had been blind not to have suspected it.
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  But Doctor Elphinston and the Jailer of souls, who could be the jailer of
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  souls, but the devil, and Anestor fancied that he had seen the devil
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  at the corner of that street, under the moon, with his black forking
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  beard and the cold eyes of death. The trail was warm now, as
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  he thought, But if he were too late. He put the thought from
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  him, turning to the perusal of a telegram in cord which he had found
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  waiting for him at the desk. Translated it read with you Thursday with four
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  six twenty one, and the others look for thirty three childers. But there
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  was no time to be lost. Thursday was to morrow. He would have
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  to take his chance of their finding him, for there was nobody whom he
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  could trust. Ellison had gone, even if he might have chanced the giant
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  in so delicate a matter, tell Kane likewise, he must take his chance.
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  Striding to the door, he stiffened abruptly at the drumming rab and a
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  hoarse voice in the corridor. Without open up in there, open up,
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  anest a pulse in his temple, beating to his hard held breath, jerk
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  back the door to face bristow. Behind him, three men whom he recognized
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  his hangers on at the hotel bar. They had something of the look of
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  long riders, villainous heart bitten as one man. They grinned now, but
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  without mirth. As the sheriff spoke, anest I arressed you for the murder
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  of Tucson, Charlie Westerwald and Bartley Patterson in the name of the law.
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  Annestor knew that if he resisted, they would shoot him down. In fact,
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  he knew too that was what they wanted. It would be the easiest
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  way under the menace of the guns. He spread his hands palm downward,
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  preceding the four men down the stairs outward to the jail, But as a
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  heavy door clang shut behind him, anester his gaze in a sightless staring into
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  the north ground in bitterness of spirit. Mary was needing him. She was
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  in peril the greater because it was unknown and he would not be there.
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  The end of chapter ten,