He had hardly spoken before the ominous sound was heard, and Bull reached for his gun.  For all his bulk of hand and unwieldy arms, the gun came smoothly, swiftly into his hand.  He would have had an ordinary man covered, long before the latter had his gun muzzle-clear of the leather.  But Pete Reeve was no ordinary man.  His arm jerked down; his fingers flickered down and up.  They went down empty; they came up with the burden of a long revolver, shining in the moonlight, and he fired before Bull’s gun came to the level for a shot.

Only Pete Reeve knew the marvel of his own shooting this day.  He had sworn a solemn and silent oath that he would not kill this faithful, courageous fellow from the mountains.  He could have planted a bullet where the life lay, at any instant of the fight.  But he fired for another purpose.  The moment Bull reached for his weapon he had lurched forward, aiming to shoot as he ran.  Pete Reeve set himself a double goal.  His first intention was to disarm the giant; the other was to stop his rush.  For, once within the grip of those big fingers, his life would be squeezed out like the juice of an orange.

His task was doubly difficult in the moonlight.  But the first shot went home nicely, aimed as exactly as a scientist finds a spot with his instruments.  Where the moon’s rays splashed across the bare right forearm of Bull, he sent a bullet that slashed through the great muscles.  The revolver dropped from the nerveless hand of the giant, but Bull never paused.  On he came, empty-handed, but with power of death, as the little man well knew, in the fingers of his extended left hand.  He came with a snarl, a savage intake of breath, as he felt the hot slash of Pete’s bullet.  But Reeve, standing erect like some duelist of old, his left hand tucked into the hollow of his back, took the great gambling chance and refused to shoot to kill.

He placed his second shot more effectively, for this time he must stop that tremendous body, advancing upon him.  He found one critical spot.  Between the knee and the thigh, halfway up on the inside of the left leg, he drove that second bullet with the precision of a surgeon.  The leg crumpled under Bull and sent him pitching forward on his face.

Perhaps the marsh ground was unstable, but it seemed to Pete Reeve that the very earth quaked beneath his feet as the big man fell.  He swung his gun wide and leaned to see how serious was the damage he had done.  Bleeding would be the greater danger.

But that fraction of a second brought him into another peril.  The giant heaved up on his sound right leg and his sound left arm, and flung himself forward, two limbs dangling uselessly.  With a hideously contorted face, Bull swung his left arm in a wide circle for a grip and scooped in Pete Reeve, as the latter sprang back with a cry of horror.