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 close to Tom's head as he stood there a fair mark in the middle of the broad street, the brim of his old sombrero flapping in the wind.

Several cowboys had climbed to the tops of the cars they had been loading, from where they watched the fight. One of them tried to signal something to Tom that he did not understand. He waved his hand to show the friendly fellow that he appreciated his interest, even though he could not profit by the signal.

They would keep out of it, Tom knew; it was not their way to mix in sectional fights or take hand in anything that did not involve them. But he couldn't help wishing he had three or four of them with him. He'd smoke that gang out of the hotel then, and clean up that town until a man could leave his lying over there by the sidetrack

A shot from that same upstairs window cut off this ardent wish. Tom raised his gun to throw lead through the blowing curtains, but held it, remembering there were women in the place. The Indian, incautious at this deflection of attention, displayed a little too much of his anatomy at the corner, and Tom pitched the shot at him instead.

It was a hit. The fellow spun out into the open, whirling as if somebody unwound him from the coils of a rope. He dropped his gun, seemed to stumble over it, and fell. There was no pretense in the posture of that man, lying on his face with his arms thrown above his head in the dusty road.

Something hit Tom's arm with a spat; a gun cracked between the houses, and the meaning of the cowboy's