Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/232

 ing gang, and gave them both barrels. Barrett and Dan went out to cover Fred's retreat, only to see the poet, standing calmly in his tracks, break his gun and start reloading.

Fred's charge of buckshot stopped the rush, Barrett and Dan turned it into immediate and precipitate flight. One man in the fleeing bunch stumbled, fell; the others ran on. Under the urge of lead behind them they made for their horses, mounted and rode out of town.

Fred Grubb stood in the road putting buckshot into windows and doors from which the townspeople were having their safe little part in the noisy fray. Barrett and Gustin left him engaged in this manner while they went to see who had fallen in the road, and whether he was in need of, or beyond, help. At their approach the fellow sprang to his feet like a fish breaking water, and ran as if a bullet never had been within a mile of him. He was so eager to make a good beginning in this race, doubtless mistaking the intention of the two men advancing, that he ran face to face with a five-wire fence surrounding the hotel corral. He saw it in time to gather himself for a jump, and cleared it like a deer. As he went over, his hat flew off. Dan went on and picked it up.

The shooting from windows and dark places of safety stopped suddenly when Grubb began to pour his argument against this method of dealing. The poet stood in the road, a fair mark for anybody that had hand steady enough, and gun with carrying capacity to reach him, loading and shooting with calm regularity. The sound of his gun was the only one that rose out of the sudden