Jimmie Dale heard him as he brushed against it.
Then silence fell.

He was between them now.

Stretched full length on the floor, Jimmie Dale raised the lower portion of the canvas away from in front of his face.

He could see nothing; the place was in Stygian blackness; but it had been close and stifling, and, at least, it gave him more air.
The minutes dragged by--each more interminable than the one that had gone before.

Not a movement, not a sound, and then, through the stillness, very faint at first, came the regular, repressed breathing of Whitey Mack, who was much the nearer of the two men.