It was an undercurrent of which he had gradually become
conscious, the sense of some unseen, guiding power, that moved and
swayed and controlled, and was present, dominant, in every den and dive
in crimeland. There had been many gang leaders and heads of little
coteries of crime, cunning, crafty in their way, and all of them
unscrupulous, like the Wolf, for instance, who had sworn openly and
boastingly through the Bad Lands, and had been believed for a season,
that they would bring the Gray Seal to a last accounting--but it was
more than this now. There was a craftier brain and a stronger hand at
work than the Wolf's had ever been! Who was it? He shook his head. He
did not know. He had gone far into the innermost circles of the
underworld--and he did not know. He sensed a power there; and in a dozen
different, intangible ways, still an intuition more than anything else,
he had sensed this "some one," this power, creeping, fumbling, feeling
its implacable way through the dark, as it were, toward _him_.
Yes, it was getting "warm"--perilously warm! And inevitably there must
come an end--some day. The warning stared him in the face. But he could
not stop, could not heed the warning, could not let things "cool" now
for a year, and stand aside until the storm should have subsided! Where
was the Tocsin? If his peril was great--what was hers!
He surged suddenly upward from his chair, his hands clenched until the
knuckles stood out like ivory knobs.
Pages:
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296