Wheeling at arm’s length, shot again.
More serious than all, Smith found himself among three fast revolvers, working from an unmanageable horse. The beast tried to follow the fleeing cowboys, and when faced sharply about showed temper. The trained horses of the outlaws stood like statues, but Smith had to fight with his horse bucking at every shot. He threw his bullets as best he could first over one shoulder and then over the other, and used the last cartridge in his revolver with Du Sang, Seagrue, and Karg shooting at him every time they could fire without hitting one another.
It was not the first time the Williams Cache gang had sworn to get him and had worked together to do it, but for the first time it looked as if they might do it. A single chance was left to Whispering Smith for his life, and with his coat slashed with bullets, he took it. For an instant his life hung on the success of a trick so appallingly awkward that a cleverer man might have failed in turning it. If his rifle should play free in the scabbard as he reached for it, he could fall to the ground, releasing it as he plunged from the saddle, and make a fight on his feet. If the rifle failed to release he was a dead man. To so narrow an issue are the cleverest combinations sometimes brought by chance. He dropped his empty revolver, ducked like a mud-hen on his horse’s neck, threw back his leg, and, with all the precision he could summon, caught the grip of his muley in both hands. He made his fall heavily to the ground, landing on his shoulder. But as he keeled from the saddle the last thing that rolled over the saddle, like the flash of a porpoise fin, was 304 the barrel of the rifle, secure in his hands. Karg, on horseback, was already bending over him, revolver in hand, but the shot was never fired. A thirty-thirty bullet from the ground knocked the gun into the air and tore every knuckle from Karg’s hand. Du Sang spurred in from the right. A rifle-slug like an axe at the root caught him through the middle. His fingers stiffened. His six-shooter fell to the ground and he clutched his side. Seagrue, ducking low, put spurs to his horse, and Whispering Smith, covered with dust, rose on the battle-field alone.
Hats, revolvers, and coats lay about him. Face downward, the huge bulk of Bill Dancing was stretched motionless in the road. Karg, crouching beside his fallen horse, held up the bloody stump of his gun hand, and Du Sang, fifty yards away, reeling like a drunken man in his saddle, spurred his horse in an aimless circle. Whispering Smith, running softly to the side of his own trembling animal, threw himself into the saddle, and, adjusting his rifle sights as the beast plunged down the draw, gave chase to Seagrue.