s attention. As he gazed his sharp ears caught
the tiny crack of a brittle branch. Instantly he dropped to all fours as
a spurt of flame showed from the tree and a bullet whined over him, to
smack against the rock and fall flattened.

Sandy did not move. He knew that, to the man firing, his fall might have
seemed a hit, that he had beaten the missile by the space of a wink. He
heard more broken boughs, as if his assailant were clumsily, assuredly,
clambering out of ambush, and he shifted silently into position, rifle
set down, both guns ready. There came a strange thrashing sound, a groan
of mortal anguish, silence. If this was a trick it was a crude one.
Sandy waited. That groan, half sigh, half rattle, could not be mistaken.
He half circled the boulder, gliding up a flattened traverse, and saw,
lying outspread over a low bough of the withered tree, face to the moon,
gun away from the curling hand, Butch Parsons.

With ready gun Sandy reached him, bent, turned him on his side. A bullet
had ranged through both hips, shattering them. The spine must have been
injured. There were puddles of blood that told the injury was some hours
old. Butch had lain there paralyzed, passed by Brandon's men as dead,
lingering like the traditional snake until sunset to see and recognize
Sandy coming through the gap, to use his last remnant of life to pull
trigger and so to die, the injured vertebrae giving away to the effort,
the spark of life pinched out.

Sandy left him and returned to the gap. He could still read sign, plain
as it was on every side. He found the side-gulch, saw the cabin, saw
Hahn's saddled horse grazing free, Blaze in the corral, the cabin door
open with the moon streaming in. He had pieced out the puzzle to his own
satisfaction. Brandon and his men had arrived and, in Hereford, they had
run across Wyatt, procuring horses there and saving themselves the trip
to the Three Star. Butch's body was evidence that they had not been
unsuccessful, Wyatt's that the fight had not been all one-sided, the
surprise not perfect. And, if Plimsoll had been warned, what had become
of Molly?

He got an answer that made his heart stand still, then pound in a rush
of action. On the floor, in the beam of the moon, lay the luck-piece, a
few links of gold chain attached to the coin. Stooping for it, he
brushed a strand of brown hair. Then he saw Grit's body beneath the
table. Fury boiled in him, chilled to icy wrath and determination. He