men were
doing.

For some time Stillson lay behind a little bush at the edge of the
gully, peering critically at the house, from which came nothing to
indicate that their approach had been discovered. At length, without a
word, he slowly raised his short-barrelled rifle and fired. One of the
horses hitched to the beam above the door stumbled forward and sank
across the opening, blocking it. The bullet had caught it at the butt
of the ear, and it fell stone dead, its neck bent up by the shortened
rein.

In response, without a word of parley, a thin cloud of smoke gushed out
of the only window facing the attack. Puffs of sand arose along the
front of the _arroyo_, searching out each little bush top which might
possibly offer cover. Stillson heard a smothered spat and a short
sound, and turned his head quickly. He saw Jim Harbin, one of the boys
from the lower range, turn over with a sigh, and lie with arms spread
out. He had been shot straight through the neck. Dan Anderson, the
man nearest to him, drew him back. He would have raised the head of
the wounded man, but the choking warned him. Harbin lay out on his
back, looking up, his breath gurgling in his throat. "No use," he
whispered thickly. "Leave me alone. I've got to take my medicine."
In ten minutes he was dead.

The day's work went on. The sheriff fired three or four more
deliberate shots, but finally turned around. At each shot, the other
horse tied to the beam sprang back.

"Can't you hit it?" grinned McKinney.

"I don't want to kill the horse," said Stillson; "I know that horse,
and it's a good one. I want to turn it loose. Here you, Anderson, can
you see that rope from where you are? Shoot it off, if you can, close
up to the beam."

Dan Anderson, in spite of Stillson's hasty warning to keep down, rose
at full height at the edge of the cover, and took a deliberate off-hand
shot. They saw him whirl half around, and look down at his left arm;
but as he dropped lower, he rested his rifle on a bit of sage brush,
and fired once more. With a snort the horse, which had been pulling
back wildly on its lariat, now broke free and went off, saddled as it
was.

"Good shot!" commented the sheriff. "That'll about put 'em on foot.
What, did they get you?"

Dan Anderson drew back from the crest and rolled up his shirt-sleeve
above an arm now wet with blood. A bullet had cut through the upper
arm above the elbow.

"Serves you mighty near righ