Then he laid hold of her with ungentle hands. His violence, especially
the look on his face, terrified Helen, rendered her weak. But nothing
could have shaken her resolve. She felt victory. Her sex, her love, and
her presence would be too much for Dale.

As he swung Helen around, the low hum of voices inside the saloon
suddenly rose to sharp, hoarse roars, accompanied by a scuffling of feet
and crashing of violently sliding chairs or tables. Dale let go of Helen
and leaped toward the door. But a silence inside, quicker and stranger
than the roar, halted him. Helen's heart contracted, then seemed to
cease beating. There was absolutely not a perceptible sound. Even the
horses appeared, like Dale, to have turned to statues.

Two thundering shots annihilated this silence. Then quickly came a
lighter shot--the smash of glass. Dale ran into the saloon. The horses
began to snort, to rear, to pound. A low, muffled murmur terrified Helen
even as it drew her. Dashing at the door, she swung it in and entered.

The place was dim, blue-hazed, smelling of smoke. Dale stood just inside
the door. On the floor lay two men. Chairs and tables were overturned.
A motley, dark, shirt-sleeved, booted, and belted crowd of men appeared
hunched against the opposite wall, with pale, set faces, turned to the
bar. Turner, the proprietor, stood at one end, his face livid, his hands
aloft and shaking. Carmichael leaned against the middle of the bar. He
held a gun low down. It was smoking.

With a gasp Helen flashed her eyes back to Dale. He had seen her--was
reaching an arm toward her. Then she saw the man lying almost at her
feet. Jeff Mulvey--her uncle's old foreman! His face was awful to
behold. A smoking gun lay near his inert hand. The other man had fallen
on his face. His garb proclaimed him a Mexican. He was not yet dead.
Then Helen, as she felt Dale's arm encircle her, looked farther, because
she could not prevent it--looked on at that strange figure against the
bar--this boy who had been such a friend in her hour of need--this naive
and frank sweetheart of her sister's.

She saw a man now--wild, white, intense as fire, with some terrible cool
kind of deadliness in his mien. His left elbow rested upon the bar, and
his hand held a glass of red liquor. The big gun, low down in his other
hand, seemed as steady as if it were a fixture.

"Heah's to thet--half-breed Beasley an' his outfit!"

Carmichael drank, while his flaming eyes held the