Before the smoke had cleared from Monte’s gun Howard leaped closer, and at this close range fired.  He saw Monte reel back.  He knew that Ed True was still shooting, but he did not care.  Monte was stumbling, saving himself from falling, straightening again, lifting his gun.  But before the swaying figure could answer the call of the cool brain directing it, Howard sprang in upon him and struck with his clubbed revolver.  And Monte Devine, his finger crooking to the trigger as the blow fell, went down heavily from the impact of the gun-barrel against his head.  Ed True emptied his cylinder and cursed and began filling it again.

Howard stood a moment over Monte Devine.  Then he took up the fallen revolver in his left hand and turned to True.

‘Chuck your gun to me, Ed,’ he commanded sternly, ’or I’ll get you right next time.’

True damned him violently.  Then he groaned, and a moment later there was the sound of his revolver hurled from him, clattering among the stones.  Howard took it up, shoved it into his pocket and turned toward the gulch.  While he sought for a sight of Bettins he hastily filled the empty chambers of his own weapon.

Now only he realized how brief a time had elapsed since Ed True’s first shot.  The grass fire was blazing, but had crept up the draw only a few feet.  And Bettins had not yet had the time to come from the other side, down into the gulch and up on this side.  He saw Bettins; the man was standing still staring toward his fallen companions.  The fire leaped higher, its light danced out in widening circles, touching at last the spot where Howard stood, where Ed True and Monte Devine lay.

‘Well, Bettins?’ called Howard abruptly.

‘What about you?  Are you coming over?’

Bettins was silent a moment.  The light flickered on the gun in his hand.  Presently he raised his voice to inquire anxiously: 

‘Hurt much, Monte?  And you, True?’

No answer from Monte.  True shrieked at him:  ’Come, over and plug him, Bettins.  For God’s sake, plug the damn cowman.’

Still Bettins hesitated.

‘Monte dead?’ he demanded.

‘How the hell do I know?’ complained True.

‘Come, plug him, Bettins.’

This time Bettins’ reply was lost in a sudden shout of voices rising from the lower end of the flat.  The vague forms of several horsemen appeared; there came the thunderous beat of flying hoofs.  Howard’s lips grew tight-pressed.  True lifted himself on his elbow.

‘It’s Jim coming back!’ he called triumphantly.

‘This way, Jim!’

But the answering shout, closer now, was unmistakably the voice of Yellow Barbee.  And with him rode half a dozen men and, among them a girl.

Chapter XVIII

A Town is Born

The fire, spreading and burning brightly now, shone on the faces making a ring about Alan Howard and the two men lying on the ground.  With Yellow Barbee had come John Carr, Longstreet and Helen, and two of the Desert Valley men, Chuck Evans and Dave Terril.  They looked swiftly from Howard to the two men whom he had shot, then curiously at Howard again.