Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/110

 brim of Original's high-crowned beaver hat suddenly dropped before his eyes, cut clean away from the crown. As he gave a great bound forward Original shook the obscuring hat from his head.

Zang was staggering backward, striving mightily to twist the hand which held his revolver up to a shooting position. Something white and glistening showed against the back of that hand; it was a bone splinter pushed through the hole a bullet had drilled.

Hilma screamed shrilly and threw out her arms to seize Original in his meteor plunge toward her companion. He slipped under one arm and closed with the outlaw just as the latter's gun was being transferred to his sound hand. The impact of the range inspector's one hundred and sixty pounds of bone and muscle sent Zang spinning back against the wall. Even as his back crashed on the logs a band of steel circled his right wrist with a vicious snap. He felt his antagonist's hand crawling up his left arm to drag it down to imprisonment.

Original, sure of his man, had dropped his .45 in a side pocket as he cleared the space between them. When first he closed with