ern school. The rustler gave his body such contortion that he
was twisted almost clear around, with his right hand over his left
shoulder. He punched the muzzle of his gun into a crack between two
stones, and he pried to open them. The dry clay cement crumbled, the
crack widened. Sighting along the barrel he aimed it with the narrow
strip of Wades shoulder that was visible above the framework. Then he
shot and hit. Wade shrank flatter and closer, hiding himself to better
advantage. The rustler made his great blunder then, for in that moment
he might have rushed out and killed his adversary. But, instead, he shot
again--another time--a third. And his heavy bullets tore and splintered
the boughs dangerously close to the hunter's head. Then came an awkward,
almost hopeless task for the rustler, in maintaining his position while
reloading his gun. He did it, and his panting attested to the labor and
pain it cost him.

So much, in fact, that he let his knee protrude. Wade fired, breaking
that knee. The rustler sagged in his tracks, his hip stuck out to afford
a target for the remorseless Wade. Still the doomed man did not cry out,
though it was evident that he could not now keep his body from sagging
into sight of the hunter. Then with a desperate courage worthy of a
better cause, and with a spirit great in its defeat, the rustler plunged
out from his hiding-place, gun extended. His red beard, his gaunt face,
fierce and baleful, his wabbling plunge that was really a fall, made a
sight which was terrible. He hopped out of that fall. His gun began to
blaze. But it only matched the blazes of Wade's. And the rustler pitched
headlong over the framework, falling heavily against the wall beyond.

Then there was silence for a long moment. Wade stirred, as if to look
around. Belllounds also stirred, and gulped, as if to breathe. The three
prostrate rustlers lay inert, their positions singularly tragic and
settled. The smoke again began to lift, to float out of the door and
windows. In another moment the big room seemed less hazy.

Wade rose, not without effort, and he had a gun in each hand. Those
hands were bloody; there was blood on his face, and his left shoulder
was red. He approached Belllounds.

Wade was terrible then--terrible with a ruthlessness that was no
pretense. To Belllounds it must have represented death--a bloody death
which he was not prepared to meet.

"Come out of your trance, you pup rustler!" yelled Wade.