And as they fired and
struck and called out after the fashion of the cowboy in a scrimmage
the body of men before them wavered and broke and began to fall back.
Norton swung his clubbed empty rifle up in both hands and beat down a
man firing at him with a revolver. All about him were struggling forms
and he was sore beset now and then to know who was who. A
fierce-mustachioed, black-browed man thrust a rifle toward his breast
and pulled the trigger and screamed out his curses as Norton put a
revolver bullet through him. A slender, boyish form sprang up upon a
rock recklessly, training his rifle upon Brocky Lane. It was the Kid.
But the Kid had met a man quicker, surer, than himself, and Brocky
fired first. Kid Rickard spun and fell. Norton saw him drop but lost
sight of him before the body struck the earth. He had found del Rio;
del Rio had found him.
Two smoking revolvers were jerked up, two guns spoke through the clamor
as one gun. The men were not ten feet apart as their guns spoke.
Norton felt a bullet rip along his outer arm, the sensation that of a
whip-lash cutting deep. He saw del Rio stagger back under the impact
of a forty-five-caliber bullet which must have merely grazed him, since
it did not knock him off his feet. Del Rio, his lips streaming his
curses and hatred, fired again.
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