l pay for it!" He stepped closer to the window, throwing the
rifle into the hollow of his arm. "It's about time for the rush; about
time for the game--"

There was movement by that small chaparral to the south! To the east
something stirred into bounding life and action; a coyote called
twice--and then they came, on foot and silently as fleeting shadows,
leaning forward to bring into play every ounce of energy in the slim,
red legs. Smoke filled the room with its acrid sting. The crashing of
the Winchester, worked with wonderful speed and deadly accuracy by the
best rifle shot in the Southwest, brought the prostrate man to his
feet in an instinctive response to the call to action, the necessity of
defence. He grasped his Colt and stumbled blindly to a window to help
the man who had stayed with him.

On Red's side of the house one warrior threw up his arms and fell
forward, sprawling with arms and legs extended; another pitched to one
side and rolled over twice before he lay still; the legs of the third
collapsed and threw him headlong, bunched up in a grotesque pile
of lifeless flesh; the fourth leaped high into the air and turned a
somersault before he struck the sand, badly wounded, and out of the
fight. Holden, steadying himself against the wall, leaned in a window
on the other side of the shack and emptied his Colt in a dazed
manner--doing his very best. Then the man with the rifle staggered back
with a muttered curse, his right arm useless, and dropped the weapon to
draw his Colt with the other hand.

Holden shrieked once and sank down, wagging his head slowly from side
to side, blood oozing from his mouth and nostrils; and his companion,
goaded into a frenzy of blood-lust and insane rage at the sight, threw
himself against the door and out into the open, to die under the clear
sky, to go like the man he was if he must die. "Damn you! It'll cost you
more yet!" he screamed, wheeling to place his back against the wall.

The triumphant yells of the exultant savages were cut short and turned
to howls of dismay by a fusillade which thundered from the south where a
crowd of hard-riding, hard-shooting cow-punchers tore out of the thicket
like an avalanche and swept over the open sand, yelling and cursing, and
then separated to go in hot pursuit of the sprinting Apaches. Some stood
up in their stirrups and fired down at a slant, making a short, chopping
motion with their heavy Colts; others leaned forward, far over the