Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/208

 The Man from Bar-20 split the darkness, and then a series of lurid spurts of flame stabbed in short jets, rapidly, regular as the ticking of a clock, marking the place where two heavy guns crashed and jumped as they poured forth a stream of lead down the narrow rock shelf that formed the precarious trail. The canyon roared in one prolonged reverberation and the bullets whined and spatted and screamed in high falsetto as they cleared the wall or struck it to glance out into the valley below.

Gates, on his hands and knees, shaken, sick with horror, crept slowly downward, oblivious to the crashing, rolling thunder and the flying lead.

"I didn't mean it, Nat!" he muttered over and over again. "I didn't mean it; not a word of it!"

A sharp spang! sounded on a rock close to his head and a hot splinter of lead cut through his cheek. He stopped and spat it out, his nerve returning as a cold rage swept over and steadied him. Jerking his gun loose he emptied it up the trail, and, methodically reloading, emptied it again, slowly, deliberately, moving it a little at each shot so as to cover a short arc. Another spurt stabbed the darkness above, and his gun, again refilled, replied to it. Again the canyon sent roaring echoes crashing from wall to wall as flash answered flash. Then suddenly the gun below grew silent, and the guns above spat twice spitefully without a reply, and they, too, ceased. 196