here she
could no longer see them.

The shadows lengthened rapidly and her view through the glasses was
beginning to blur when the gates of the stockade swung back and five
horses dashed out, running at top speed under the urge of the spurs. A
rider leaned low upon the neck of each horse and they scattered wide as
they fanned out across the basin, a wild stampede for safety, every man
for himself.

She saw one man lurch sidewise and slip to the ground; another
straightened in the saddle, swung for two jumps, and slid off backwards
across the rump of his mount. She saw the great striped bug which was
Waddles rise to his knees in the path of a third. The rider veered his
mount and swung from the saddle, clinging along the far side of the
running horse. Then man and horse went down together and neither rose.
Waddles had shot straight through the horse and reached the mark on the
other side. The shooting ceased when six shots had been fired. Four
riderless horses were careening round the basin. Five hits out of six,
she reflected; perhaps six straight hits.

The stockade was empty, leaving only the four in the house to be
accounted for. The dark specks in the brush were working closer to the
house, effectually blocking escape. Then she could no longer make them
out. The building showed only as a darker blot in the obscurity. A
tiny point of light attracted her eye. It grew and spread. She knew
that one of her men had crawled up under cover of night and fired the
house. It was now but a question of minutes, but the sight oppressed
her. She thought of the burning buildings on the Three Bar and rose to
make her way back to the pocket where the horses had been left in the
care of a deputy.

"It will be over in an hour," she told the horse guard.

All through the day she had scarcely moved and she was tired. The
hours of inactivity had proved more wearing than a day in the saddle.
Harris and the sheriff came in with their detail.

There were no prisoners.

"So they wouldn't give up even when they was burnt out," the horse
guard commented. "I thought maybe a few would march out and surrender."

"I'd sort of hoped we'd have one or two left over so we could put on a
trial," the sheriff said. "There was three come out. But the light
was poor and all. Maybe they did aim to surrender. It's hard to say.
But if they did--why, some of the Three Bar boys read the signs wrong.
Anyway, there won't be any trial