moment more Norton had found
Brocky Lane, had explained his plan, had had Brocky's silent nod for an
answer. In quiet voices the men passed the word along the line. Those
from the farther end drew in closer so that their whole body of
something better than thirty men occupied but a brief section of the
arroyo.

"Get your wind first, boys," Norton admonished them. "Better fill your
clips, too, while you've got the chance. And count on using a six gun
before you're through. All right? Let's show 'em the sort of a scrap
a Gringo _can_ put up."

Then again they were running, the unwavering line of thirty men, but
with a difference which the outlaws might not mistake. And as they ran
they held their fire for a little, knowing how useless and suicidal it
would be to pause half-way. But presently they were answering shot
with shot, pausing, going down upon one knee, taking a moment's
advantage of a friendly rock, pouring lead into the agitated groups
among the boulders, springing up, running on again, every man fighting
the fight his own way, the thirty of them making the air tingle with
their shouts as they bore onward.

Then it was man to man and often enough one man to two or three, dark
forms struggling, men striking with clubbed guns, men snatching at
their side-arms, going down, rising or half rising, firing as long as a
charge was in a gun or strength in a body. And as they fired and
struck and called out after the fashion of the cowboy in a scrimmage
the body of men before them wavered and broke and began to fall back.

Norton swung his clubbed empty rifle up in both hands and beat down a
man firing at him with a revolver. All about him were struggling forms
and he was sore beset now and then to know who was who. A
fierce-mustachioed, black-browed man thrust a rifle toward his breast
and pulled the trigger and screamed out his curses as Norton put a
revolver bullet through him. A slender, boyish form sprang up upon a
rock recklessly, training his rifle upon Brocky Lane. It was the Kid.
But the Kid had met a man quicker, surer, than himself, and Brocky
fired first. Kid Rickard spun and fell. Norton saw him drop but lost
sight of him before the body struck the earth. He had found del Rio;
del Rio had found him.

Two smoking revolvers were jerked up, two guns spoke through the clamor
as one gun. The men were not ten feet apart as their guns spoke.
Norton felt a bullet rip along his outer arm, the s