Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/88

 The fellow in pursuit began to shoot again. Fifty yards from the cover of willows along the little stream, Barrett's horse stumbled to its knees, falling with a catch of its breath that sounded like a sigh.

Barrett went on over the wounded creature's head, falling full length, clutching the reins as if life depended on the retention of his hold. When he lifted himself to his hand, dazed and breathless from the hard fall, he expected to meet the crash of the bullet that would end that first adventure of his upon the range.

The rustler had checked his pursuit, stopping perhaps not more than twenty yards from the place where Barrett had fallen. There he sat leaning forward, the high horn of his saddle against his lean gizzard, gun raised to throw the last shot. He seemed to be peering to see whether Barrett might be so badly wounded that another shot would be wasted on him.

Barrett's wounded horse lay between the men, the dust of the overthrow still hanging above the scene. And there on the ground beside it, not three yards from where he braced himself in his sick confusion, lay Barrett's broken blanket roll, the grip of his own pistol offering to his hand.

Moved by the hope this sight inspired, quickened out of his daze by the chance of giving the ruffian an equal fight, Barrett lunged toward the gun. At the same moment the rustler shifted his position to get a better view. At Barrett's start, he fired. The shot set Barrett's crippled horse thrashing and struggling to rise. In uprearing it received the rustler's second shot, which otherwise would have closed the day for Barrett,