“When it hits my heart I’m done,” he muttered.  “Guess I’ll go over and keep Tony company.”

Inch by inch he dragged himself across the sand.  Tony Brewster lay on his back.  High Chin touched him; felt of the limp arm, and gazed curiously at the blue-edged hole in his brother’s chest.  With awful labor that brought a clammy moisture to his face, he managed to drag himself close to his brother and writhe round to a position where he could sit up, braced against the other’s body.  He gazed out across the desert.  It had been a fast fight.  Waring was done for.  High Chin wondered how long he would last.  The sun was near the horizon.  It seemed only a few minutes ago that the sun had been directly overhead and he and his brothers had been cursing the heat.  It was growing cold.  He shivered.  A long shadow reached out toward him from the bank of the arroyo.  In a few minutes it would touch him.  Then would come night and the stars.  The numbness was creeping toward his chest.  He could not breathe freely.  He moved his arms. They were alive yet.  He opened and closed his fingers, gazing at them curiously.  It was a strange thing that a man should die like this; a little at a time, and not suffer much pain.  The fading flame of his old recklessness flared up.

“I’m goin’ across,” he said.  “But, by God, I’m takin’ Jim Waring with me!”

He glanced toward the buckskin horse that stood so patiently beside that silent figure out there.  Waring was done for.  High Chin blinked.  A long shaft of sunlight spread across the sand, and in the glow High Chin saw that the horse was moving toward him.  He stared for a few seconds.  Then he screamed horribly.

Waring, his hand gripping the stirrup, was dragging across the sand beside the horse that stepped sideways and carefully as Waring urged him on.  Dex worked nearer to High Chin, but so slowly that High Chin thought it was some horrible phantasy sent to awaken fear in his dulled brain.  But that dragging figure, white-faced and terrible—­that was real!  Within a few paces of High Chin, Dex stopped and turned his head to look down at Waring.  And Waring, swaying up on his hands, laughed wildly.

“I came over—­to tell you—­that it was Pat’s gun—­” He collapsed and lay still.

High Chin sat staring dully at the gunman’s uncovered head.  The horse sniffed at Waring.  High Chin’s jaw sagged.  He slumped down, and lay back across the body of his brother.

* * * * *

A pathway of lamplight floated out and across the main street of Criswell.  A solitary figure lounged at the saloon bar.  The sharp barking of a dog broke the desert silence.  The lounger gazed at the path of lamplight which framed the bare hitching-rail.  His companions of the afternoon had departed to their homes.  Again the dog barked shrilly.  The saloon-keeper moved to a chair and picked up a rumpled paper.