dragged; he watched darkly as the remaining two raised their hands above
their heads. Then his lips came out of their pout and were wreathed in a
bitter snarl.

"Licked!" he muttered. "Twelve put out of business. But there's thirty
more--if the damn fools have come in to town! That's two to one!" He
laughed, wheeled his horse toward Manti, rode a few feet down the slope of
the arroyo, halted and sat motionless in the saddle, looking back. He
smiled with cold satisfaction. "Lucky for me that cinch strap broke," he
said.

* * * * *

Trevison was placing Levins' limp form across the saddle on Nigger's back
when the faint morning breeze bore to his ears the report of Weaver's
pistol. A rattling volley followed the first report, and Trevison led
Nigger close to the edge of the ledge in time to observe the battle as
Corrigan had seen it. He hurried Nigger down the slope, but he had to be
careful with his burden. Reaching the level he lifted Levins off, laid him
gently on the top of a huge flat rock, and then leaped into the saddle and
sent Nigger tearing over the plains toward the scene of the battle.

It was over when he arrived. A dozen men were lying in the tall grass.
Some were groaning, writhing; others were quiet and motionless. Four or
five of them were arrayed in chaps. His lips grimmed as his gaze swept
them. He dismounted and went to them, one after another. He stooped long
over one.

"They've got Weaver," he heard a voice say. And he started and looked
around, and seeing no one near, knew it was his own voice that he heard.
It was dry and light--as a man's voice might be who has run far and fast.
He stood for a while, looking down at Weaver. His brain was reeling, as it
had reeled over on the ledge of the pueblo a few minutes before, when he
had discovered a certain thing. It was not a weakness; it was a surge of
reviving rage, an accession of passion that made his head swim with its
potency, made his muscles swell with a strength that he had not known for
many hours. Never in his life had he felt more like crying. His emotions
seared his soul as a white-hot iron sears the flesh; they burned into him,
scorching his pity and his impulses of mercy, withering them, blighting
them. He heard himself whining sibilantly, as he had heard boys whine when
fighting, with eagerness and lust for blows. It was the insensate, raging
fury of the fight-madness that had gripped him, a