He spoke quickly. "Turn
yore gun this way, Dug."

It was Shorty. His revolver flashed at the same instant. Doble staggered,
steadied himself, and fired.

The forty-fives roared. Yellow flames and smoke spurted. The bulldog
barked. Dave's parlor toy had come into action.

Out of the battle Shorty and Sanders came erect and uninjured. Doble
was lying on the ground, his revolver smoking a foot or two from the
twitching, outstretched hand.

The outlaw was dead before Shorty turned him over. A bullet had passed
through the heart. Another had struck him on the temple, a third in the
chest.

"We got him good," said Shorty. "It was comin' to him. I reckon you don't
know that he fired the chaparral on purpose. Wanted to wipe out the
Jackpot, I s'pose. Yes, Dug sure had it comin' to him."

Dave said nothing. He looked down at the man, eyes hard as jade, jaw
clamped tight. He knew that but for Shorty's arrival he would probably be
lying there himself.

"I was aimin' to shoot it out with him before I heard of this last
scullduggery. Soon as the kid woke me I hustled up my intentions." The
bad man looked at Dave's weapon with the flicker of a smile on his face.
"He called it a popgun. I took notice it was a right busy li'l'
plaything. But you got yore nerve all right. I'd say you hadn't a chance
in a thousand. You played yore hand fine, keelin' over so's he'd come
clost enough for you to get a crack at him. At that, he'd maybe 'a' got
you if I hadn't drapped in."

"Yes," said Sanders.

He walked across to the corral fence, where Joyce sat huddled against the
lower bars.

She lifted her head and looked at him from wan eyes out of which the life
had been stricken. They stared at him in dumb, amazed questioning.

Dave lifted her from the ground.

"I... I thought you... were dead," she whispered.

"Not even powder-burnt. His six-shooter outranged mine. I was trying to
get him closer."

"Is he...?"

"Yes. He'll never trouble any of us again."

She shuddered in his arms.

Dave ached for her in every tortured nerve. He did not know, and it was
not his place to ask, what price she had had to pay.

Presently she told him, not in words, without knowing what he was
suffering for her. A ghost of a smile touched her eyes.

"I knew you would come. It's all right now."

His heart leaped. "Yes, it's all right, Joyce."

She recurred to her fears for him. "You're not ... hiding any wounds from
me? I saw you fall and lie t