I feel
that I'll smother, I'll die!"
From down in the valley they watched, close to a score of hard-eyed,
wrath-filled men, as Blenham stepped out of the crevice and on to the
ledge. They saw how he jeered as he stepped over the body of the man
he had shot.
"A fool was Barbee," he called. "A fool the Packards, ol' an' young!"
They saw him come down the slope, carrying himself with a swaggering
air of braggadocio, but plainly watchful and suspicious. Terry had
come out upon the ledge and she too watched him. He came down swiftly
and swung up into the saddle of the horse they had left for him.
And now at last his suspicion was past. His triumph broke out like a
streak of evil light.
"I was ready to go," he called, "any time!"
He swung his arm out toward the blue hills of Old Mexico.
"Down there-----"
Barbee whom they had thought dead stirred a little where he lay. The
rifle under him he thrust forward six inches.
"Blenham!" he called weakly.
Blenham swung about and fired, again from the hip. But he had fired
hastily. Barbee's rifle, resting upon the rock, was steady. Between
its muzzle and Blenham's broad chest there was but the brief distance
of some fifty feet. The report of Barbee's rifle, the thin upcurling
smoke under the new sun--these were the chief matters in all the world
for their little fragment of time.
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