the last breath from his lungs, and I should have accomplished it had
not the second man recognized the situation in time. If I had been
fighting sanely I might have risen in time to meet him, and in his
condition could have disposed of him, but I had forgotten his existence
and remembered only the enemy upon whose chest my knee was pressing and
whose life was fast waning under my ten clinging fingers. The mania to
kill with bare hands is strong when it has once obsessed, and the second
feudist found it an easy thing in my absorbed condition to throw his
handkerchief about my neck and strangle me first into helplessness and
finally into unconsciousness.

I came to my senses lying at the roadside, trussed up like a pig being
taken to market. On either side of me lay my captors stretched at full
length and resting, though a line of gray over the eastern peaks bespoke
the coming of dawn, and a thin ribbon of rosy pinkness was edging the
gray at the margin of the morning.

When I endeavored to rise Curt Dawson also sat up and gazed at me. His
face wore scars that gave me a moment of sincere pleasure, and he found
only one eye available for his scrutiny. His open shirt showed upon his
neck the deep-written autograph of my finger nails, but his lips wore a
grin as he reached for his broad-brimmed felt hat and placed it on the
back of his head.

"Well, stranger," he drawled as good naturedly as though our combat had
partaken only of elements of friendly sport, "I want ter name it to yer
that you ain't noways er cripple in er fight. I told yer yer'd haf' ter
come along, an' I reckon I was about right. Ef yer ready ter ride we'll
heave yer up an' hike."

"What are you going to do with me?" I demanded.

"We'll figger on that by an' by," he assured me; "the fust thing we do
will be plum friendly. We'll take yer where yer kin git a drink of
licker."

I found that prospect grateful, for from head to foot I ached with
bruises and a great weakness possessed me, but I did not propose to
submit tamely at any point.

"I don't see how you are to keep me out of court unless you kill me," I
suggested, "and if you are going to kill me you've got to do it here and
now."

"What fer?" he queried with his tantalizing coolness. "Ef we're ergoin'
ter kill yer, I reckon we'll pick our own time and place. But mebby we
won't haf ter."

He rose indolently and came over with an effort to conceal the hobble of
a limp, and propping my bound