“I thought it was going to be a case uh dragging to death, but it wasn’t; it looked to me a heap worse.  Number two dragged his man a ways—­I reckon till he was plumb helpless—­and then he pulled up and rode back to where he laid.  The fellow tried to get up, and did get partly on his knees—­and number one standing over him, watching.

“What passed I don’t know, not having my hearing magnified like my sight was.  I framed it up that number two was getting his past, present and future read out to him—­what I’d call a free life reading.  The rope was pinning his arms down to his sides, and number two was taking blamed good care there wasn’t any slack, so fast as he tried to get up he was yanked back.  From first to last he never had a ghost of a show.

“Then number two reaches back deliberate and draws his gun and commences shooting, and I commences hollering for him to quit it—­and me a mile off and can’t do nothing!  I tell yuh right now, that was about the worst deal I ever went up against, to set there on that pinnacle and watch murder done in cold blood, and me plumb helpless.

“The first shot wasn’t none fatal, as I could see plainer than was pleasant.  Looked to me like he wanted to string out the agony.  It was a clear case uh butchery from start to finish; the damnedest, lowest-down act a white man could be guilty of.  He empties his six-gun—­counting the smoke-puffs—­and waits a minute, watching like a cat does a gopher.  I was sweating cold, but I kept my eyes glued to them glasses like a man in a nightmare.

“When he makes sure the fellow’s dead, he rides alongside and flips off the rope, with the buckskin snorting and edging off—­at the blood-smell, I reckon.  While he’s coiling his rope, calm as if he’d just merely roped a yearling, the buckskin gets his head, plants it and turns on the fireworks.

“When that hoss starts in pitching, I come alive and drop the glasses into their case and make a jump for my own hoss.  If the Lord lets me come up with that devil, I aim to deal out a case uh justice on my own hook; I was in a right proper humor for doing him like he done the other fellow, and not ask no questions.  Looked to me like he had it coming, all right.

“I’d just stuck my toe in the stirrup, when down comes the fog like a wet blanket on everything.  I couldn’t see twenty feet—­” Andy stopped and reached for a burning twig to relight his cigarette.  The Happy Family was breathing hard with the spell of the story.

“Did yuh git him?” Happy Jack asked hoarsely.  Andy took a long puff at his cigarette.  “Well, I—­Holy smoke! what’s the matter with you, Blink?” For Blink was leaning forward, half crouched, like a cat about to pounce, and was glaring fixedly at Andy with lips drawn back in a snarl.  The Happy Family looked, then stared.

Blink relaxed, shrugged his shoulders and grinned unmirthfully.  He got up, pulled up his chaps with the peculiar, hitching gesture which comes with long practice and grows to be second nature, and stared back defiantly at the wondering faces lighted by the dancing flames.  He turned his back coolly upon them and walked away to where his horse stood, took up the reins and stuck his toe in the stirrup, went up and landed in the saddle ready for anything.  Then he wheeled the big sorrel so that he faced those at the camp-fire.