man he was choking to death--gleaming
with the ferocity of an animal gone mad--Awhile bloody foam spewed from
his bleeding lips. The cowboy's face was beginning to flush a terrible
purple as the breath was gradually crushed from his body.

As the Greek forced him back, bending him down and over, the Ramblin'
Kid, his eyes burning like fire while a million flashes of light seemed
to stab the darkness before them and needles darted through every fiber
of his flesh, wrenched his right arm free and gripping the back of
Sabota's shirt with his left hand to give purchase to the blow, with all
the strength left in his body, drove the knuckles of his right fist into
the left temple of the Greek.

The blow went home.

A film, like a veil drawn across the fiendish glare in them, spread over
the eyes of Sabota, his grip on the throat of the cowboy relaxed and as
a bull, struck by the hammer of the butcher, he dropped to the floor.

The Ramblin' Kid crouched, panting, over the massive bulk.

Sabota slowly opened his eyes and started to raise his battered head.
With a laugh the cowboy swung terrible right and left blows into the
Greek's face. The head dropped back.

Again the Ramblin' Kid stooped low, waiting for another sign of life
from the prostrate form.

Red Jackson slipped from behind the bar, half bent forward, moved
stealthily up behind the Ramblin' Kid; one hand drawn partly back held,
by the neck, a heavy beer bottle. Skinny saw his intention. Instantly
the Quarter Circle KT cowboy's forty-four was jerked from its holster
and the blue-steel barrel swung against the side of the bartender's
head. He pitched over in a limp heap and the bottle crushed against the
brass foot-rail, breaking into a thousand fragments. A half-dozen of
Sabota's crowd started forward. Skinny's gun whipped around in front of
him.

"Keep back, y' sons-of-hell!" he snarled, "Sabota's gettin' what's
coming to him!"

The Greek's eyes opened. His fingers touched the butt of the Ramblin'
Kid's revolver and began to close slowly over the handle of the weapon.

"Make him quit," one of the pool-room loafers whined; "he's killed him!"

The Ramblin' Kid saw Sabota reach for the gun. He answered the speaker
and the Greek's effort to get the forty-four at the same time:

"Not yet--_but now_!" he cried with a low laugh and leaped with both
heels squarely on the bloody face of Sabota! There was a horrible
crunching sound as of bones and flesh being g