Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/40

 old man who had fallen, its long barrel pointing down pathetically in his nerveless grasp, and thought of it for—the first time as a ponderable article applicable to the needs of that perilous moment.

Hall grabbed the gun, whirling to meet the raider, a feeling of prickling exultation, of hair-lifting defiance, sweeping him refreshingly. The fellow's horse squatted and skated over the bricks as he pulled it up to veer off and bring his gun arm to the clear. It was a moment of confusion in which the rider was disconcerted in his scheme, and that was the moment when Andrew Hall, swinging the heavy pistol by the long barrel, just as he had snatched it from its owner's hand, let it drive at his assailant's head.

There was no aim about it; just the rough calculation one makes in throwing a rock, but not more than four yards divided the men, and Hall's calculation was good. The bandit, or whatever he was, heeled backward over his cantle, where he swayed a breath, and slumped off to the ground. His horse gathered its legs and galloped away, reins flying, stirrups thumping its sides.

Hall piled himself on the prostrate ruffian, the feeling of outrage he had suffered, a neutral and peaceably disposed man, growing in his heated senses every moment. He had the scoundrel by the neck, bony knees pinning his arms to the ground, when several men came running up eager to relieve him of the responsibility for any further punishment.

It was Bud Sandiver, Hall heard somebody say, an awesome respect in his voice. There was blood on his forehead, whoever he was, where Hall's sinewy arm had slammed that desecrated old gentleman's pistol. The