aid.

"Give me room, men!" Spence commanded, in voice that trembled with
passion, with the memory of old quarrels, old wrongs, which this last
insult to the camp's guest gave the excuse for wiping out. There was
something in his tone not to be denied; they fell out of his path as if
the wind had blown them. Jim fired, his elbow against his ribs.

Too confident of his own speed, or forgetting that Wilder already had
his weapon out, Spence crumpled at the knees, toppled backward, fell.
His pistol, half-drawn, dropped from the holster and lay at his side.
Wilder came a step nearer and fired another shot into the fallen man's
body, dead as he must have known him to be. He ran on to his horse,
mounted, and rode away.

Some of the others hurried to the wagon after their guns. Lambert, for a
moment shocked to the heart by the sudden horror of the tragedy, bent
over the body of the man who had taken up his quarrel without even
knowing the merits of it, or whose fault lay at the beginning. A look
into his face was enough to tell that there was nothing within the
compass of this earth that could bring back life to that strong, young
body, struck down in a breath like a broken vase. He looked up. Jim
Wilder was bending in the saddle as he rode swiftly away, as if he
expected them to shoot. A great fire of resentment for this man's
destructive deed swept over him, hotter than the hot blood wasting from
his wounded cheek. The passion of vengeance wrenched his joints, his
hand shook and grew cold, as he stooped again to unfasten the belt about
his friend's dead body.

Armed with the weapon that had been drawn a fraction of a second too
late, drawn in the chivalrous defense of hospitality, the high courtesy
of an obligation to a stranger, Lambert mounted the horse that had come
to be his at the price of this tragedy, and galloped in pursuit of the
fleeing man.

Some of the young men were hurrying to the corral, belting on their guns
as they ran to fetch their horses and join the pursuit. Siwash called
them back.

"Leave it to him, boys; it's his by rights," he said.

Taterleg stood looking after the two riders, the hindmost drawing
steadily upon the leader, and stood looking so until they disappeared in
the timber at the base of the hills.

"My God!" said he. And again, after a little while: "My God!"

It was dusk when Lambert came back, leading Jim Wilder's horse. There
was blood on the empty saddle.

CHAPTER IV