ction and shoot in another. He pointed the guns and apparently
pulled the triggers long after the shots had all been fired.

Kells was on his knees now with only one gun. This wavered and fell,
wavered and fell. His left arm hung broken. But his face flashed white
through the thin, drifting clouds of smoke.

Besides Gulden the bandit Pike was the only one not down, and he was
hard hit. When he shot his last he threw the gun away, and, drawing a
knife, he made at Kells. Kells shot once more, and hit Pike, but did
not stop him. Silence, after the shots and yells, seemed weird, and the
groping giant, trying to follow Pike, resembled a huge phantom. With one
wrench he tore off a leg of the overturned table and brandished that. He
swayed now, and there was a whistle where before there had been a roar.

Pike fell over the body of Blicky and got up again. The bandit leader
staggered to his feet, flung the useless gun in Pike's face, and closed
with him in weak but final combat. They lurched and careened to and fro,
with the giant Gulden swaying after them. Thus they struggled until
Pike moved under Gulden's swinging club. The impetus of the blow
carried Gulden off his balance. Kells seized the haft of the knife still
protruding from the giant's neck, and he pulled upon it with all his
might. Gulden heaved up again, and the movement enabled Kells to pull
out the knife. A bursting gush of blood, thick and heavy, went flooding
before the giant as he fell.

Kells dropped the knife, and, tottering, surveyed the scene before
him--the gasping Gulden, and all the quiet forms. Then he made a few
halting steps, and dropped near the door.

Joan tried to rush out, but what with the unsteadiness of her limbs
and Jim holding her as he went out, too, she seemed long in getting to
Kells.

She knelt beside him, lifted his head. His face was white--his eyes were
open. But they were only the windows of a retreating soul. He did not
know her. Consciousness was gone. Then swiftly life fled.

20

Cleve steadied Joan in her saddle, and stood a moment beside her,
holding her hands. The darkness seemed clearing before her eyes and the
sick pain within her seemed numbing out.

"Brace up! Hang--to your saddle!" Jim was saying, earnestly. "Any moment
some of the other bandits might come.... You lead the way. I'll follow
and drive the pack-horse."

"But, Jim, I'll never be able to find the back-trail," said Joan.

"I think you will. You