or it more than for
anything he ever had done.

While Mackenzie was yet a hundred yards from Reid he saw him swing
from the saddle and shelter himself behind his horse. Hall and his
companion were standing off warily, a good pistol shot from Reid,
distrustful of this sudden change in his tactics, apparently believing
he had come to the place he had selected to make his defensive stand.
A little while they stood waiting for him to fire, then separated, the
stranger circling to come behind Mackenzie, Hall moving a little
nearer to Reid, who kept his horse before him with the craft of an
Indian.

Hall stood a little while, as if waiting for Reid to fire, then rode
forward, throwing a stream of lead as he came. Reid's horse reared,
ran a few rods with head thrown wildly high, its master clinging to
the bit, dragging over shrub and stone. Suddenly it collapsed forward
on its knees, and stretched dead.

Reid flung himself to the ground behind the protection of its carcass,
Hall pausing in his assault to reload. The man who had ridden a wide
and cautious circuit to get behind Mackenzie now dismounted and began
firing across his saddle. Mackenzie turned, a pistol in each hand,
indecisive a moment whether to return the fellow's fire or rush
forward and join Reid behind the breastworks of his beast.

The stranger was nearer Mackenzie by many rods than Hall, but still so
far away that his shots went wide, whistling high over Mackenzie's
head, or kicking dirt among the shrubs at either hand. Hall was
charging down on Reid again, but with a wariness that held him off a
distance of comparative safety.

In the moment that he paused there, considering the best and quickest
move to make to lessen Reid's peril, the thought shot to Mackenzie
like a rending of confusing clouds that it was not so much Reid's
peril as his own. These men had come to kill him; their sighting Reid
on the way was only an incident. It was his fight, and not Reid's, for
Reid was safe behind his horse, lying along its body close to the
ground like a snake.

This understanding of the situation cleared the air tremendously.
Where he had seen in confusion, with a sense of mingling and turning
but a moment before, Mackenzie now beheld things with the sharpness of
self-interest, calculating his situation with a comprehensive
appraisement of every yard that lay between him and his enemies. He
was steady as a tree, light with a feeling of relief, of justification