rgan's saddle as the raiders circled him in a wild
fete of shots and yells. One struck his rifle, running down the barrel
to the grip like a lightning bolt, spattering hot lead on his hand;
another clicked on the ornament of the Spanish bit, frightening his
horse, before that moment as steady as if at work on the range. The
shaken creature leaped, bunching its body in a shuddering knot. Blood
ran from its mouth in a stream.

A shot ripped through the high cantle of the saddle; one seared Morgan's
back as it rent his shirt. The horse leaped, to come down stiff-legged
like an outlaw, bleeding head thrust forward, nose close to the ground.
Then it reared and plunged, striking wildly with fore feet upon the
death-laden air.

In leaping to save himself from entanglement as the creature fell,
Morgan dropped his rifle. Before he could recover himself from the
spring out of the saddle, the horse, thrashing in the paroxysm of death,
struck the gun with its shod fore foot, snapping the stock from the
barrel.

Dust was in Morgan's eyes and throat, smoke burned in his scorched
lungs. The smell of blood mingling with dust was in his nostrils. The
heat of the increasing fire was so great that Morgan flung himself to
the ground beside his horse, with more thought of shielding himself from
that torture than from the inpouring rain of lead.

How many were down among the raiders he did not know; whether the people
had heard the noise of this fight and were coming to his assistance, he
could not tell. Dust and smoke flew so thick around him that the
courthouse not three rods away, was visible only by dim glimpses; the
houses around the square he could not see at all.

The raiders flashed through the smoke and dust, here seen in a rift for
one brief glance, there lost in the swathing pall that swallowed all but
their high-pitched yells and shots. Morgan was certain of only one thing
in that hot, panting, brain-cracking moment--that he was still alive.

Whether whole or hurt, he did not know, scarcely considered. The marvel
of it was that he still lived, like a wolf at the end of the chase
ringed round by hounds. Lived, lead hissing by his face, lead lifting
his hair, lead knocking dirt into his eyes as he lay along the carcass
of his horse, his body to the ground like a snake.

Morgan felt that it would be his last fight. In the turmoil of smoke and
dust, his poor strivings, his upward gropings out of the dark; his glad
inspiration