f terror and whirled and sprang for the open. But
Mac Strann sprang after him and reached. His whole body seemed to
stretch like an elastic thing, and his arm grew longer. The hand
fastened on the back of Langley, plucked him up, and jammed him against
the wall. Haw-Haw crumpled to the floor.

He gasped: "It weren't me, Mac. For Gawd's sake, it weren't me!"

His face was a study. There was abject terror in it, and yet there was
also a sort of grisly joy, and his eyes feasted on the silent agony of
Mac Strann.

"Where?" asked Mac Strann.

"Mac," pleaded the vulture who cringed on the floor, "gimme your word
you ain't goin' to hold it agin me."

"Tell me," said the other, and he framed the face of the vulture between
his large hands. If he pressed the heels of those hands together bones
would snap, and Haw-Haw Langley knew it. And yet nothing but a wild
delight could have set that glitter in his little eyes, just as nothing
but a palsy of terror could have set his limbs twitching so.

"Who shot him from behind?" demanded the giant.

"It wasn't from behind," croaked the bearer of ill-tidings. "It was from
the front."

"While he wasn't looking?"

"No. He was beat to the draw."

"You're _lyin'_ to me," said Mac Strann slowly.

"So help me God!" cried Langley.

"Who done it?"

"A little feller. He ain't half as big as me. He's got a voice like
Kitty Jackson, the school-marm; and he's got eyes like a starved
pup. It was him that done it."

The eyes of Mac Strann grew vaguely meditative.

"Nope," he mused, in answer to his own thoughts, "I won't use no rope.
I'll use my hands. Where'd the bullet land?"

A fresh agony of trembling shook Langley, and a fresh sparkle came in
his glance.

"Betwixt his ribs, Mac. And right on through. And it come out his back!"

But there was not an answering tremor in Mac Strann. He let his hands
fall away from the face of the vulture and he caught up the saddle.
Langley straightened himself. He peered anxiously at Strann, as if he
feared to miss something.

"I dunno whether he's livin' right now, or not," suggested Haw-Haw.

But Mac Strann was already striding through the door.

* * * * *

Sweat was pouring from the lather-flecked bodies of their horses when
they drew rein, at last, at the goal of their long, fierce ride; and
Haw-Haw slunk behind the broad form of Mac Strann when the latter strode
into the hotel. Then the two started for