uttered.

He fired high above their heads. The sudden report crashed through the
babel of shoutings, a veritable babel into which half of the tongues
of Europe mingled with Chinese and Japanese sing-song. As the crack of
the gun died away all other sounds died with it. The desert grew as
suddenly still as it ever is in the depths of its man-free solitudes.
Staring, wondering faces which had first turned to one another turned
now toward him.

Again there broke out a volley of abrupt cries, followed by as sudden
a silence, as they watched him to see what he meant, what he would do.
And Conniston took quick advantage of this short hush.

"Leave that wagon, every man of you!" he shouted. "Move toward the
ditch. And move fast!"

No man of them stirred. Their numbers, their intoxication, gave them
assurance. He was no longer the "boss." They were all just men now,
and he was only one while they were two hundred. They began to laugh.
The Italian with the harmonica struck up a fresh, jigging air. The
heavy-booted feet took up the rhythm. A man climbed into the wagon
and scooped up a dipperful of whisky, holding it aloft before he
drank.

The light was still uncertain, but the dipper was a bright, clear
target. Conniston waited a moment, his teeth hard set, hardly
breathing. Then, as the man lowered the dipper from his face and held
it out invitingly over the heads of the men on the ground, he fired.

The bullet crashed through the tin thing, hurling it into the crowd.
The man who had held it cried out aloud, and, clutching the fingers of
his right hand in his left, leaped down from the wagon. The Lark
rolled over and to the ground, dived between the wheels, and
disappeared. And again came a sudden silence.

Now Conniston did not wait. He fired at the barrel itself, hoping to
smash in the staves, to drill holes near the bottom through which the
confined liquor could escape. And now the men ceased singing and
dancing and leaped back, crowding away from the barrel, plunging and
stumbling out of the line of bullets. For a moment Conniston thought
that in that wild, headlong scramble for safety he saw the end of the
thing. And almost before the thought was formed he knew better.

The men were talking sullenly. He could hear their angry, snarling
voices, no longer shouting, but low-pitched. He began to make out
their faces and saw nowhere an expression of fear, everywhere black
wrath, restless fury. They no longer moved bac