Loudon jerked Johnny down just as a bullet gashed the side of a post above his head. Johnny ceased talking and ran hurriedly to where Chuck Morgan was kneeling behind a corner of the corral. Loudon joined Laguerre at the other corner.

The four were in an excellent position. The corral commanded the rear and one side of the sheriff's shack, the rear of the Happy Heart Saloon, and one side of the barn in the rear of the Blue Pigeon Store.

A man ran out of the barn. Laguerre's rifle cracked. The man stumbled, dropped, dragged himself to his hands and knees, and then huddled down slackly. Laguerre pumped in another cartridge. The staccato din at the other end of town was increasing. The heavy roars of several buffalo guns punctuated the steady crackling of the Winchesters' whip-like reports. Loudon smiled a slow smile and cuddled his rifle-b.u.t.t against his shoulder. The world was coming his way at last.

"That sheriff wouldn't 'a' built his corral so solid," observed Loudon, "if he'd looked ahead."

"You bet he wouldn'," said Laguerre. "Dees log ees fine. No bullet come troo dem. Bimeby we geet Meestair Block, mebbeso."

"He may be down in the Happy Heart. There ain't been a shot from the shack yet. He's in town all right though. His hoss and seven others are in the corral"--Loudon peered through a crack in the logs--"I can't see the brands. They're turned the wrong way."

"Dere ees a lot o' pony een dat corral down dere," said Laguerre.

"That's behind the Happy Heart Saloon. Lord help 'em if they try to slide out on 'em."

_Zing-g-g_! A bullet ricochetted from a near-by boulder and hummed above Loudon's hat.

"That came from the barn," said Loudon, firing at a gray smoke-cloud high up on the side of the structure. "They've knocked a hole in a board, I guess. Yep"--as the thinning smoke revealed a black opening--"they have."

Shooting carefully and without haste, Loudon and Laguerre rendered firing from that hole in the barn a case of suicide. From their corner Johnny Ramsay and Chuck Morgan alternately drove questing bullets into the barn and the rear of the Happy Heart Saloon.

The firing from the barn slackened. That from the Happy Heart redoubled in vigour. The gla.s.s window-sashes began to fall in tinkling rain on the ground.

"The boys must 'a' gotten into the houses across the street," said Loudon. "They're a-firin' right through the saloon."

"She weel be dark een two hour," Laguerre remarked, irrelevantly.

"I know it. We'll have to finish up before then or they'll getaway.

Plug any, Johnny?"

"One," was the laconic reply of that expert with a rifle.

"He didn't, neither!" denied Chuck Morgan. "I got him. Johnny was loadin' his rifle at the time the feller cashed. Johnny couldn't hit a flock o' barn doors flyin' low--not with his rifle."

"Oh, couldn't I, huh?" yapped Johnny Ramsay. "Well, if I hadn't 'a'

got him you'd be a-lyin' there right quiet an' peaceful with yore hat over yore face. I hit what I aim at. I ain't been shootin' holes in boards like some people."

At this juncture the door of the Happy Heart opened a crack, and Johnny and Chuck forgot their argument at once. The door closed abruptly, the wood near the k.n.o.b gashed and scarred by several bullets.

"This is gettin' monotonous," said Loudon. "I thought there'd be action this side an' there ain't a bit. The barn has gone to sleep.

I'm goin' into the sheriff's shack. I'll bet it's empty."

"Dey geet you from the barn, mabbeso," Laguerre suggested.

"No, they won't--not if yuh keep 'em away from that hole."

Loudon laid his rifle down, pulled his hat firmly over his ears, and raced toward the shack, jerking out his revolvers as he ran. He reached the door of the shack without a shot having been fired at him.

Fully aware that death might be awaiting his entry, he drove his shoulder against the door and burst it open. He sprang across the doorsill and halted, balancing on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet.

Save for the loud ticking of an alarm clock there was no sound in the shack. The door of the front room stood open. Through the doorway Loudon glimpsed a broken chair, and beside it, where the floor sagged, a pool of blood. Loudon walked into the front room.

His eyes beheld a scene of the wildest disorder. There had been a fierce fight in that front room. On his back on the floor, his legs under the table, lay Sheriff Block, his black beard reddened with blood from a wound in the cheek. One hand gripped the b.u.t.t of a six-shooter and the other clutched the breast of his flannel shirt. There were two bullet-holes in the sheriff's chest.

Across the base of the closed front door lay the body of Rufe Cutting.

He had been literally cut to pieces. Only his face was unmarked.

Otherwise he was a ghastly object. From beneath his body oozy runlets of blood had centred in the pool beside the chair.

Propped up against the side wall, his legs outstretched, sat a stranger. Blood spotted and stained the floor about him. He had been shot in the legs and the chest. Across his knees lay a Winchester.

Beside him a long knife, red from hilt to point, was stuck upright in the floor. The stranger's chin was on his breast, a b.l.o.o.d.y froth flecked his lips. So positive was Loudon that the stranger was dead, that, when the man jerked his head upright, he jumped a full yard backward. Weakly the wounded man plucked at his Winchester, his dull eyes fixed on Loudon. The latter ran to his side.

"It's all right, stranger," cried Loudon, "I'm a friend."

At this a.s.surance the stranger ceased in his effort to raise his rifle.

"Water," he muttered, faintly, "water."

In a corner stood a bucket and a tin dipper. Loudon scooped up a dipperful and held it to the man's lips. He drank chokingly, and half the water spilled out on his shirt.

"Stranger," muttered the wounded man, "I'm goin' away from here in a hurry. Pull off my boots, will yuh?"

Loudon complied with the request. The removal of the boots must have cruelly hurt the wounded legs, but the man did not even groan.

"That's better," muttered the man, when the boots were off. "I was hopin' I wouldn't have to cash with 'em on. Who's yore friend?"

Loudon whirled, for his nerves were on edge, and Laguerre, who had entered without a sound, only saved himself from death by a cat-like leap to one side. As it was, Loudon's bullet missed him by the veriest fraction of an inch. Loudon shamefacedly holstered his weapon.

"My fault," said Laguerre, calmly. "Nex' time eet ees bes' I speak firs', yes. Who ees de man?"

"I dunno. Who are yuh, stranger?"

"Did yuh kill him?" queried the stranger, his eyes beginning to film over.

"No, he's a friend, too. Can't yuh tell yore name?"

"I'm Tom Hallaway," was the thickly uttered response. "Rufe Cutting killed my brother Jim an' stole his pinto hoss. Block was with Cutting, an' helped him. I got 'em both. I said I'd cut Rufe's heart out--an' I sure--done it. Gimme a--drink."

But before the water came Tom Hallaway's head fell forward, and he died.

"Look here," said Laguerre, who had looked out of the window opposite Tom Hallaway.

Loudon went to the window. Beneath it two dead men were sprawled.

Their stiffened fingers clutched six-shooters.

"They drilled him through the window," said Loudon, "an' he got 'em both."

Laguerre nodded solemnly.

"Brave man, dat Tom Hallaway," said Telescope Laguerre.