bartender, had taken a hand.

[Illustration: Quinnion was down and shooting, with but ten steps . . .
between him and the man whom he sought to kill.]

The card-room was plunged in darkness so thick that Lee's frowning eyes
could no longer make out Quinnion's head above the table, so black that
to Quinnion's eyes the tall form of Lee against the wall was lost in
shadow.

XX

THE FIGHT AT THE JAILBIRD

As Steve fired his shot into the lamp, Bud Lee understood just what
would be Steve's next play; the bartender had given his friends brief
respite from the deadly fire of the Blue Lake man, and now would turn
his second shot through the flimsy wall itself on the man standing
there. Lee did not hesitate now, but with one leap was across the
room, avoiding the table, seeking to come to close quarters with
Quinnion and have the thing over and done with. In the bitterness
still gnawing at his heart, he told himself again that it would be no
calamity to the world if the two men who had insulted Judith Sanford
went down together.

Again Steve fired. His bullet ripped into the wall, tearing a hole
through the partition where a brief instant ago Lee had stood. The
light out in the barroom was extinguished. In the cardroom it was
utterly, impenetrably dark now, only a vague square of lesser darkness
telling where was the window through which Shorty had fled.

A red flare of flame from where Quinnion crouched, and Lee stood very
still, refusing the temptation to fire back. For Quinnion's bullet had
sped wide of the mark, striking the wall a full yard to Lee's left.
Quinnion's eyes had not found him, would not find him soon if he stood
quite motionless. The fight was still to be made, Quinnion's friends
would be taking a hand now, Steve had already joined issue. There were
six of them against him and with one shot fired from his heavy Colt
there were but five left. No shot to be wasted.

A little creaking of a floorboard, a vague, misty blur almost at his
side, and still Lee saved his fire. Quickly he lifted the big
revolver, held welded to a grip of steel, throwing it high above his
head and striking downward. There was almost no sound; just the
thudding blow as the thick barrel struck a heavy mat of hair, and with
no outcry a man went down to lie still. At the same moment the dim
square of the window showed a form slipping through; one man was
seeking safety from a quarrel not his own. And as he went, t