p.

Stone's answer was a bullet. His shot echoed Laramie's, and as Laramie
whipped the hat from his enemy's head, his bullet tore through the
right side of Laramie's belt. Bare-headed, and thirsty to close on his
antagonist, Stone, jumping from Laramie's second bullet, ran forward,
hugging the creek wall, dropped on one knee, fired, and ran in again.
Laramie refused to be tempted from the shadow in which he stood, until
Stone, rounding the wall again as he came on, firing, threatened to
find partial cover should Laramie stand still. It was a contest of
deadly fencing, of steady heads and cool wit, a struggle in instant
strategy. And if Stone meant to force Laramie into the sunshine, he
now succeeded--but at a fearful cost. Laramie jumped not only into the
sunshine but into the blinding sun itself, and when Stone ran in again,
Laramie tore open his hip with a bullet. It knocked the foreman over
as if it had been a mallet. But he was swiftly up and firing
persistently almost outlined with bullets Laramie's figure against the
rock wall. He splintered the grip of Laramie's revolver in its
holster, he cut the sleeve from his wrist, and tore hair from the right
side of his head; but he could not stop him. Enraged, and realizing
too late how every possibility in the fight had been figured out by his
enemy before he stepped into sight, Stone, crippled, yet forced to
circle, dropped once more on his knee to smash in a final shot.

He was covered the instant he knelt. A bullet from Laramie's rifle
shook him like a leaf. His head, jerking, sunk to his breast. With a
superhuman effort he rallied. He looked at Laramie--narrowly
watching--shook the hair from before his eyes and fumbling at the
firing lever tried to elevate his rifle to pump. But he swayed on his
bent knee; the rifle slipped from his grasp. He sank to the rock
floor, clutching with his big hands at the gravel, while Laramie
running to him turned him over, snatched his revolver from its holster
and throwing it out of reach, lifted his enemy's head.

When Kate, in an agony of suspense, made her way to the creek bed she
found Laramie scooping water up in his hands for Stone. She could not
go near the wounded man. Only by word from where she stood, piteously,
and by dumb sign, she drew Laramie to her to learn whether _he_ was
hurt. When he declared he was not, she would not believe him till she
had felt his arm where one bullet had cut his sleeve, and