."

"Can't get up," said the prostrate man sullenly, after a pause. "Hip's
broke, or something."

"You lie! Get up, you liar!"

"All right." The cattleman slumped helplessly together. "Go ahead;
stomp on me. I can't get up."

Roger stood looking down at him irresolutely. In the fury of combat he
had been ready, even eager, to wreak any possible damage to his
opponent by fighting. Now with his blood growing cooler and no
antagonist before him it was a different matter, and the Anglo-Saxon
instinct to succor a fallen and helpless foe began to assert itself.

"You're a lying hound," he said furiously, to hide his intentions.
"Your hip is as sound as mine. Get up."

"All right; stomp on me; go ahead; I can't move."

"Where do you pretend you're hurt?"

"It's here." The man's right hand was fumbling in the side pocket of
his overalls. "Broke or paralyzed or something! Oh! oh! Mister, you
won the fight. Oh! Going to leave me here for the buzzards, I s'pose?"

"What do you take me for?" Roger bent over his victim. "Turn over so
I can see where your hand is."

"Oh, oh! Straighten my leg out, for Gawd's sake." Roger bent to do
so, his eyes for the moment leaving the other's face. "Easy; easy,
now. There, you sucker; take that!"

As one might leap back from a reptile's fangs, so Roger leaped at the
burning sensation and the thud of a blow on his back. The cattleman,
too, came to his feet with a spring that betrayed his shaming
[Transcriber's note: shamming?]; and at sight of the glistening thing
in the man's hand Roger understood. It was a long-bladed clasp knife
with a button catch. While the man was groaning and pretending to feel
for his broken bones he had opened the knife in his pocket; and when
Roger had bent over the man had stabbed him in the back.

The man was grinning in bestial fashion, his teeth bared, his eyes
alight with devilish expectancy, waiting for his victim to fall. He
was gloating; he feasted his eyes upon Roger's fresh young face, his
bright eyes, and waited for the flesh to begin to fade and grow
greenish white; for the eyes to fill with a slow astonishment and to
grow dim as a light that is turned out, and for the great young body to
come crashing stupidly to the ground. He made no move to strike again;
he was too intensely interested in anticipation of the sight he thought
to gloat over. The delectable spectacle did not seem to come. The
victim's fresh color did