bottom. Three men had halted on the sand
within the curve. Two lay on their rifles under the upper point, a
hundred and twenty paces from Whispering Smith. The third man,
Seagrue, less than fifty yards away, had got off his horse and was
laying down his rifle, when the hoot-owl screeched again and he looked
uneasily back. They had chosen for their halt a spot easily defended,
and needed only darkness to make them safe, when Smith, stepping out
into plain sight, threw forward his hand.

They heard his sharp call to pitch up, and the men under the point
jumped. Seagrue had not yet taken his hand from his rifle. He threw it
to his shoulder. As closely together as two fingers of the right hand
can be struck twice in the palm of the left, two rifle-shots cracked
across the wash. Two bullets passed so close in flight they might have
struck. One cut the dusty hair from Smith's temple and slit the brim
of his hat above his ear; the other struck Seagrue under the left eye,
ploughed through the roof of his mouth, and, coming out below his ear,
splintered the rock at his back.

The shock alone would have staggered a bullock, but Seagrue, laughing,
came forward pumping his gun. Sinclair, at a hundred and twenty yards,
cut instantly into the fight, and the ball from his rifle creased the
alkali that crusted Whispering Smith's unshaven cheek. As he fired he
sprang to cover.

For Seagrue and Smith there was no cover: for one or both it was death
in the open and Seagrue, with his rifle at his cheek, walked straight
into it. Taking for a moment the fire of the three guns, Whispering
Smith stood, a perfect target, outlined against the sky. They whipped
the dust from his coat, tore the sleeve from his wrist, and ripped the
blouse collar from his neck; but he felt no bullet shock. He saw
before him only the buckle of Seagrue's belt forty paces away, and
sent bullet after bullet at the gleam of brass between the sights.
Both men were using high-pressure guns, and the deadly shock of the
slugs made Seagrue twitch and stagger. The man was dying as he walked.
Smith's hand was racing with the lever, and had a cartridge jammed,
the steel would have snapped like a match.

It was beyond human endurance to support the leaden death. The little
square of brass between the sights wavered. Seagrue stumbled, doubled
on his knees, and staggering plunged loosely forward on the sand.
Whispering Smith threw his fire toward the bowlder behind which
Sinc