ep," he added
deliberately. "Finger your six-shooter as much as you like." Laramie
waved his hand with his words. "Use it on me if you like. But, by
----, Abe----" As his voice changed, he jumped to his feet, adding
like lightning, "you're not going to use it on yourself!"

He sprang for Hawk, reaching with his left hand for the gun. In
tigerish ferocity the two men came together. Sleepy Cat worthies had
sometimes speculated on what might happen if the two men most known and
most feared in the Falling Wall country, Hawk and Laramie, should ever
quarrel. They met now; but in a quarrel the wildest gossip had not
fancied. Reeling, feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes
staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the
middle of the cooped-up room--Hawk striving to free and kill himself;
Laramie determined to wrest the gun from his grasp.

It was an unequal contest. Weakened by loss of blood, Hawk was not
long a match for the only man on the range who under other conditions
could have stood up before him. Gradually, with the gun in his right
hand, Hawk was bent backward, with Laramie's left hand slipping along
the barrel closer and closer to the grip. Prolonged by the fear of
further injuring the wounded man, the tempestuous effort for mastery
ended when Hawk was forced to the bed and Laramie's iron fingers,
closing on the gun, wrenched it from him.

Hawk was done out and Laramie without more resistance straightened him
out on the bed.

"You're worse hit than you think," panted the conqueror. "I've got a
scheme better than yours, if there's time to put it through. Wait till
I get a couple of horses."

The clatter of a horse outside cut into his last words. Laramie
instantly slipped Hawk's revolver back into his hand, picked up his own
gun and holster, strapping it to his waist as he ran, crossed the room,
tore up a board in the floor, snatched a pair of rifles from their
cache and hastening back to Hawk, his eyes glued all the while to the
door, pushed one rifle into Hawk's hand and swung the other to his hip.

Not a word had been spoken. But preparations for a reception had been
made complete and eventualities thoroughly considered. Heavy footfalls
outside announced the approach of a man. The next moment the door was
flung open and the intruder heard Laramie's voice in savage emphasis:

"Pitch up!"

The intruder did not, however, pitch up. It was John Lefever. He
stood