of the open space near the waiting Vigilantes, bring his horse to a
sliding halt and face toward his pursuer. He clawed at a hip pocket,
drawing a pistol that flashed in the first rays of the morning sun--it
belched fire and smoke in a continuous stream, seemingly straight at the
rider of the black horse. One--two--three--four--five--six times! The girl
counted. But the first man's hand wabbled, and the rider of the black
horse came on like a demon astride a black bolt, a laugh of bitter
derision on his lips. The black did not swerve. Straight and true in his
headlong flight he struck the other horse. They went down in a smother of
dust, the two horses grunting, scrambling and kicking. The girl had seen
the rider of the black horse lunge forward at the instant of impact; he
had thrown himself at the other man as she had seen football players
launch themselves at players of the opposition, and they had both reeled
out of their saddles to disappear in the smother of dust.

Men left the fringe of the living wall flanking the open space and seized
the two horses, leading them away. The smother drifted, and the girl
screamed at sight of the two raging things that rolled and burrowed in the
deep dust of the street.

* * * * *

They got up as she watched them, springing apart hesitating for an awful
instant to sob breath into their lungs; then they rushed together,
striking bitter, sledge-hammer blows that sounded like the smashing of
flat rocks, falling from a great height, on the surface of water. She
shrieked once, wildly, beseeching someone to stop them, but no man paid
any attention to her cry. They sat on their horses, silent, tense, grim,
and she settled into a coma of terror, an icy paralysis gripping her. She
heard her father muttering incoherently at her side, droning and puling
something over and over in a wailing monotone--she caught it after a
while; he was calling upon his God--in an hour that could not have been
were it not for his own moral flaccidness.

The dust under the feet of the fighting men leveled under their shifting,
dragging feet; it bore the print of their bodies where they had lain and
rolled in it; erupting volcanoes belched it heavily upward; it caught and
gripped their legs to the ankles, making their movements slow and sodden.
This condition favored the larger man. He lashed out a heavy fist that
caught Trevison full and fair on the jaw, and the la