e back. The Governor's son watched
every muscle of Shanklin's face as if to read the gambler's intention in
his eye, while his hand, stiff-set and clawlike, hovered within three
inches of his pistol-butt.

Presently Shanklin stopped, panting like a lizard. Both men stooped a
little lower, leaning forward in their eager watchfulness. Neither of
them seemed to be conscious that the world held any other object than
his enemy, crouching, waiting, drawing breath in nostril-dilating
gasps.

Boyle moved one foot slightly, as if to steady himself for a supreme
effort. A little stone which he dislodged tumbled down the side of a
four-inch gully with a noise that seemed the sound of an avalanche. With
that alarm Shanklin's arm moved swiftly. Like a reflection in a glass,
Boyle's arm moved with it.

Two shots; such a bare margin between them that the ear scarcely could
mark the line. Then one.

Shanklin, his hands half lifted, his arms crooked at the elbow and
extended from his sides, dropped his pistol, his mouth open, as if to
utter the surprise which was pictured in his features. He doubled limply
at the knees, collapsed forward, fell upon his face.

Boyle put his hand to his breast above his heart, pressing it hard; took
it away, turned about in his tracks as if bewildered; swayed sickly,
sank to his knees, and fell over to his side with the silent, hopeless,
huddling movement of a wild creature that has been shot in the woods.

Ten-Gallon came from behind the tent, where he had been compressing
himself into a crevice between two boulders. His face was white, and
down it sweat was pouring, drawn from the agony of his base soul. He
went to the place where Dr. Slavens knelt beside Boyle.

"Cra-zy Christmas!" gasped he, his mouth falling open. Then again:

"Cra-zy Christmas!"

Slavens had gone to Boyle first, because there was something in the
utter collapse of Shanklin which told him the man was dead. As he
stripped Boyle's clothing off to bare the wound, Slavens ordered
Ten-Gallon to go and see whether the old gambler had paid his last
loss.

"I won't touch him! I won't lay a hand on him!" Ten-Gallon refused,
drawing back in alarm.

Boyle was not dead, though Shanklin's bullet had struck him perilously
near the heart and had passed through his body. With each feeble intake
of breath blood bubbled from the blue mark, which looked like a little
bruise, on his chest.

"Well, see if you can make a fire, then, and hu