ot
eyes of a beast of prey she ran right up at the cowboy, heedless of the
gun he held leveled low down.

He shot her. She swayed backward, uttering a low and horrible cry, and
even as she swayed her face blanched and her eyes changed. She fell
heavily, with her golden hair loosening and her bare white arms
spreading wide. Then in the horror-stricken silence she lay there, still
conscious, but with an awful hunted realization in the eyes fixed upon
the cowboy, a great growing splotch of blood darkening the white of her
dress.

Larry King did not look at Stanton and he kept moving down the steps; he
was walking faster now, and he drew Allie behind him. The first of that
stunned group to awake to action was the giant Fresno, as, with blind,
unreasoning passion, he attempted to draw upon the cowboy. The boom of
Larry's big gun and the crash of Fresno as he fell woke the spellbound
crowd into an uproar. Screaming women and shouting men rushed madly back
into the dance-hall.

Larry turned toward the hallway leading to the street. Mull and Black
began shooting as he turned, and hit him, for Allie, holding fast to
him, felt the vibrating shock of his body. With two swift shots Larry
killed both men. Mull fell across the width of the hall. And as Allie
stumbled over his body she looked down to see his huge head, his ruddy
face, and the great ox-eyes, rolling and ghastly. In that brief glance
she saw him die.

The cowboy strode fast now. Allie, with hands clenched in his coat,
clung desperately to him. Hollow booms of guns filled the passageway,
and hoarse shouts of alarmed men sounded from the street. Burned powder
smoke choked Allie. The very marrow of her bones seemed curdled. She saw
the red belches of fire near and far; she passed a man floundering and
bellowing on the floor; she felt Larry jerk back as if struck, and then
something hot grazed her shoulder. A bullet had torn clear through him,
from breast to back. He staggered, but he went on. Another man lay on
the threshold of the wide door, his head down the step, and his pallid
face blood-streaked. A smoking gun lay near his twitching hand. That
pallid face belonged to Dayss.

Larry King staggered out into an empty street, looking up and down.
"Wal, I reckon--thet's--aboot--all!" he drawled, with low, strangled
utterance.

Then swaying from side to side he strode swiftly, almost falling
forward, holding tight to Allie. They drew away from the brighter
lights. A