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 would take more than four horses with ropes tied to saddle-horns to budge the building, although his little window had burst under the strain.

It was the thought that these scoundrels believed he was in the house, and that they were putting over a great joke on him by upsetting and exposing him in his confusion like a bug under a rock, that put the torch to his resentment and wrath. He jumped from his concealment with a yell, throwing a shot toward the bunch as he came into the clear.

Whether his shot cut one of the ropes, or whether it broke at that exact moment, Rawlins had no way of knowing, but a rope parted at any rate, letting the straining horse down so suddenly it rolled over, throwing its rider clear. The man watching the door pitched a shot at Rawlins, which went wild on account of the shooter's trouble with his horse. It was plunging to break and run, frightened out of its wits by the horse that had fallen and come rolling toward it in a scramble of legs and dust.

There was confusion among the three whose ropes were still attached to the house, their horses threatening disastrous complications with legs and lines. Between trying to cast off the ropes from their saddles and preventing the excited horses getting their legs snared in them, these fellows had no hands for their guns. The battle was left for the moment to the one who appeared to be the leader, and he was doing a lot of shooting for one man, it seemed to Rawlins as he hopped and dodged from bush to bush, cracking away at the whirl of dust, horses and men beside his little house.