nd the shot-gun with him, and having his guns
and the derringers in his belt beside, and got behind the one mule
that hadn't been downed and opened up on the bushes where the smoke
was and let go as hard as he knowed how. He said he must a-killed
more'n twenty of 'em, he guessed, judging by the yelling and groaning,
and by the way they slacked up on their fire. Their slacking that way
give him a chance, he said, and he took it--cutting the mule loose
from the harness with one hand, while he kept on blazing away over her
back with the other; then letting 'em have it from both hands for a
minute, from what guns he had left that wasn't empty, to sort of
paralyze 'em; and then getting quick on the mule's back and starting
her down the barranca on a dead run.

He had balls buzzing all about him, he said, till he got out of sight
around a turn in the barranca; and he said before he made that turn he
looked back once and saw a big feller up on top of the bank letting
off at him as hard as he could go. Just to show he still had fight in
him, he said, he let off back at him with his two derringers--which
was all he had left to shoot with--and he was pretty sure, though of
course it was only luck did it with the mule bouncing him so, the big
feller went down. He was a tremendous tall man, he said; and he
guessed he was a Greaser, seeing he had a big black beard and was
dressed in Greaser clothes.

He said he didn't mind owning up he was scared bad while he was in it;
but he said he guessed anybody would a-been scared with all them
fellers shooting away at him--and, as he'd made as good a fight of it
as he knowed how, he didn't think he was to be blamed for ending by
running from such a crowd. He kept on down the barranca for about two
miles, he said, till he struck the cross-trail to Tesuque; and he
headed north on that till he got to Pojuaque--where he give the mule a
rest, she was blowed all to bits, the mule was, he said; and he got
some of old man Bouquet's wine in him, feeling pretty well blowed to
bits himself; and then he come along home.

Well, that seemed a straight enough story. The only thing in it you
really could pick on--except the number of road-agents, he only having
seen one, and the rest being his scared guesswork--was the mule not
being hit while he was doing all that firing over the back of her. But
all fights has their queer chances in 'em; and that was a chance that
might a-happened, same as others. Of co