Then standing at the one door which still afforded a chance of exit, Kinnard Towers for the last time raised his arms.
"Throw down yore guns, men, an' go out with yore hands up," he yelled, seeking to be heard above the din of conflagration. "Myself, I aims ter stay hyar!"
A few caught the words and plunged precipitately out, unarmed, with hands high in surrender; and others, seeing that they did not fall, followed with a sheep-like imitation—but some, already struggling with the asphyxiation that clawed at their throats, writhed uneasily on the floor—and then lay motionless.
Kinnard Towers, with a bitter despair in his eyes, and yet with the leonine glare of defiance unquenched, stood watching that final retreat. He saw that at the stockade gate, they were being passed out and put under guard. It was in his own mind, when he had been left quite alone to walk deliberately out, fighting until he fell.
About him the skies were red and angry. His death would come with a full and pyrotechnic illumination, seen of all men, and it would at least be said of him that he had never yielded.
So picking up a rifle from the floor, he deliberately examined its magazine and efficiency. After that he stepped out, paused on the doorstep, and fired defiantly at the open gate of the stockade.
There was a spatter of bullets against the walls at his back, but he stood uninjured and defiantly laughing. Without haste he walked forward. Then a tall figure, with masked face came running toward him and he leveled the rifle at its breast. But he was close to the gate now, and the man plunged in, in time to strike his barrel up and bear him to the ground.
Outside the stockade stood, herded, the prisoners, and at their front, the posse of deputies brooded over Kinnard Towers and Tom Carmichael, both shamefully hand-cuffed.
Bear Cat Stacy looked over his captives who, taking their cue from Towers himself, remained doggedly silent.
"You men," he said crisply, "all save these two kin go home now—but when ther co'te needs ye ye've got ter answer—an ye've got ter speak ther truth."