ign of it.
The lower right side of Hawk's face had been torn away as if by some
explosion, and blood, darkened by clay and rude styptics, clotted the
long beard that naturally fell in a glossy black. His disordered
garments, blood-smeared and hanging loose--his coat sleeve and his
shirt torn from his forearm for bandages, his soft hat jammed low over
his eyes--for an instant, Laramie hardly recognized him. But the cold
black eyes that looked out of the wreck of a man before him pierced so
clearly the long shadows of the early light that Laramie had no choice
but to realize it was Hawk and even the shock only served to restrain
and steady him. He showed but little of his amazement when he sat up
and spoke quietly: "What's up, Abe?"

"Night before last I was playing cards with Gorman over at Henry's.
After daylight Gorman went out for a bucket of water. We heard a rifle
crack. I looked out the window. Stormy was tumbling.

"You know the draw that runs down past his corral? Barb Doubleday,
Pettigrew, Van Horn, Stone and a bunch of cowboys and Texas men lay in
that draw. It was hell to pay from daylight till dark. The Dutchman
got laid out cold right at the start. They tried to rush me. I
stopped three of 'em and dug myself in. We went at it hammer and
tongs. In the afternoon they put a hole through my whiskers. After
awhile they clipped my shoulder. Then I got a bullet through my arm."
He held up his left forearm swathed in a mass of soiled and
blood-soaked bandages. And he told of Van Horn's go-devil.

"The raid's on," muttered Laramie.

"Soon as it was dark, I began to dig under the sill," Hawk went on.
"They began lighting fires. I knew they couldn't keep those going a
great while. About ten o'clock I crawled out under the front sill and
got to the creek; I never was so gone for water in my life. I set a
candle so it would fire the shack when it burned down and sneaked a
horse from their bunch and got over to my place." He looked at his
arm. "I tried to keep things bound up. Maybe I left a little red
behind me. If I did, they'll be after me."

His story haltingly told; his utterance through his torn cheek thick
and painful but savagely uncompromising; carrying a physical burden of
wounds that would have overwhelmed a lesser man but with a deadly hate
showing in his manner, Hawk, from sheer weakness, paused: "I went to my
cabin to look for more cartridges," he added slowly, "and not a one was