Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/287

 and fired, just as Charley Thomson, his bound arms at his back, leaned and blew out the lamp.

There was a confusion of screams from Alma and Teresa, and the rush of arriving horsemen drawing a line around the house. Barrett called sharply to Manuel to make a light. The old man, answering softly, unshaken in his fateful acceptation of things as they fell, struck a match.

Barrett had a glimpse of Cattle Kate lying crumpled in the door, and of Alma, for whom he feared with a greater terror than he ever had known, standing with horror in her eyes, gazing at something in the shadows beyond the table. Old Manuel deliberately took his handkerchief from his pocket to lift the hot lamp chimney, his body hovering over the match in his hand, cutting off the light.

When the lamp flared again, it discovered armed men crowding into the hall. Findlay was gone; Thomson was gone. But Cattle Kate lay dead in the doorway, and over beyond the long table Senator Nearing stretched straight as if his limbs had been arranged to keep his dignity. His blood was wasting down upon the hearthstones, in the place where a man should be safe, if there is any safety for him against violence and sudden death, amidst the perils of this world.