Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/298

 during the tumultuous seconds after his invasion of the cabin. Now he had wrestled Zang to the floor on the far side of the interior next to the fireplace, and with incredible swiftness he was throwing about the outlaw's threshing legs binding nooses of a hair rope he had slung over his arm the instant of his leap from the saddle.

The close confines of the log-walled room roared with the discharge of a rifle. The gaunt figure of Timberline Todd, crouching at a corner of one of the windows flanking the door was enveloped with wreathing smoke; his right elbow jerked pistonlike as he threw a fresh shell into the chamber of his muley. Faintly came the sound of shots without.

Original, slipping the final knot that bound his captor's legs, heard a metallic click behind him. He threw a hasty glance over his shoulder. Hilma, standing a few feet behind him, was just raising a rifle to her shoulder; its octagonal snout bore down on him. He caught a flash of bared teeth and the cold eyes of murder laid against the rifle stock.

The man acted quicker than light. He threw himself on his curved back, driving one booted foot at the rifle muzzle. His heel struck