strode across the square.

At the foot of the steps he met the man. The guard saw them converse for
a brief minute; saw the sheriff shake his fist in the other's face and
turn to walk back. As he turned, a shot from an upper window dropped him
in his stride.

The cowboys yelled and charged across the square. The machine gun
stuttered and sprayed a fury of slugs that cut down horses and riders. A
cowboy, his horse shot from under him, sprang up the steps and dragged
the machine gun into the open. A rain of slugs from the upper windows
struck him down. His companions carried him back to cover. The machine
gun stood in the square, no longer a menace, yet no one dared approach
it from either side.

When the old Ranger, who had orders to hold his men in reserve, heard
that the sheriff had been shot down under a flag of truce, he shook his
head.

"Three men could 'a' stopped that gun as easy as twenty, and saved more
hosses. Who wants to take a little pasear after that gun?"

Several of his men volunteered.

"I only need two," he said, smiling. "I call by guess. Number
twenty-six, number thirty-eight, and number three."

The last was his own number.

In the wide hallway and massed on the court-house stairs the mob was
calling out to recover the gun. Beyond control of their leaders, crazed
with drink and killing, they surged forward, quarreling, and shoved from
behind by those above.

"We're ridin'," said the old Ranger.

With a man on each side of him he charged across the square.

Waco, peering from behind a stone column in the entrance, saw that Lorry
was one of the riders. Lorry's lips were drawn tight. His face was pale,
but his gun arm swung up and down with the regularity of a machine as he
threw shot after shot into the black tide that welled from the
court-house doorway. A man near Waco pulled an automatic and leveled it.
Waco swung his arm and brained the man with an empty whiskey bottle. He
threw the bottle at another of his fellows, and, stumbling down the
steps, called to Lorry. The three riders paused for an instant as Waco
ran forward. The riders had won almost to the gun when Waco stooped and
jerked it round and poured a withering volley into the close-packed
doorway.

Back in the side street the leader of the cowboys addressed his men.

"We'll leave the horses here," he said. "Tex went after that gun, and I
reckon he's got it. We'll clean up afoot."

But the I.W.W. had had enough. Their lea