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Rh shot; the thing took a long time. Bullets spattered all about Collins; after a while one went through his left arm, which lay across his chest. To the sting he rose, half angrily, and made a movement toward his rifle, then, ‘‘Oh, hell!” he said again, with heavy indifference.

It was almost sundown when the wily old sheriff, taught by many lessons the futility of haste, ordered a concentric advance. The men rushed forward; they met face to face above a lifeless body.

The sheriff touched it lightly with the tip of his boot. “Well,” he said, and his low voice in the still air had an unexpected, booming finality; “well, he was a bad one.”

But John Collins, with glazed eyes, was staring up at the cloud.

Rh