he went out. Jim knelt beside
the door, peering between post and curtain.

Joan staggered to the chink between the logs. She would see that fight
if it froze her blood--the very marrow of her bones.

The gamblers were intent upon their game. Not a dark face looked up as
Kells sauntered toward the table. Gulden sat with his back to the
door. There was a shaft of sunlight streaming in, and Kells blocked it,
sending a shadow over the bent heads of the gamesters. How significant
that shadow--a blackness barring gold! Still no one paid any attention
to Kells.

He stepped closer. Suddenly he leaped into swift and terrible violence.
Then with a lunge he drove the knife into Gulden's burly neck.

Up heaved the giant, his mighty force overturning table and benches and
men. An awful boom, strangely distorted and split, burst from him.

Then Kells blocked the door with a gun in each hand, but only the one
in his right hand spurted white and red. Instantly there followed a
mad scramble--hoarse yells, over which that awful roar of Gulden's
predominated--and the bang of guns. Clouds of white smoke veiled the
scene, and with every shot the veil grew denser. Red flashes burst from
the ground where men were down, and from each side of Kells. His form
seemed less instinct with force; it had shortened; he was sagging. But
at intervals the red spurt and report of his gun showed he was fighting.
Then a volley from one side made him stagger against the door. The clear
spang of a Winchester spoke above the heavy boom of the guns.

Joan's eyesight recovered from its blur or else the haze of smoke
drifted, for she saw better. Gulden's actions fascinated her, horrified
her. He had evidently gone crazy. He groped about the room, through the
smoke, to and fro before the fighting, yelling bandits, grasping with
huge hands for something. His sense of direction, his equilibrium, had
become affected. His awful roar still sounded above the din, but it was
weakening. His giant's strength was weakening. His legs bent and buckled
under him. All at once he whipped out his two big guns and began to fire
as he staggered--at random. He killed the wounded Blicky. In the melee
he ran against Jesse Smith and thrust both guns at him. Jesse saw the
peril and with a shriek he fired point-blank at Gulden. Then as Gulden
pulled triggers both men fell. But Gulden rose, bloody-browed, bawling,
still a terrible engine of destruction. He seemed to glare in one
dire