Poynter could see them plainly, and immediately recognized them to be Barton Clowry and Polk Redlaw, the former a drunken, worthless scoundrel, that would lie, steal, fight and drink, day in and day out, disliked by everybody and pitied by none. He had a fit-looking person for a partner, owing to the blow dealt Polk Redlaw by Poynter, at the "Twin Sycamores," that had inflamed his entire face dreadfully.
All this he saw at a glance, and when the two would-be murderers had crossed half the intervening space, Poynter leaped to his feet with a hoarse cry, and as his right arm straightened out, the sun's rays flashed upon the polished tube of a revolver. At the report, Clowry gave a convulsive spring, and then fell upon his face, dead.
"Now, you dirty mongrel cur, it is your turn!" yelled Poynter, as he again cocked his weapon.
It was discharged, but Polk had caught the motion, and throwing himself flat upon the ground, the missile hissed harmlessly above his head. But ere he could arise, Poynter leaped forward and dealt him a fearful kick upon the side of his head, that hurled him forward twice his length, sprawling among the bushes, where he lay perfectly limp and motionless.
His enemy stooped over him and felt of his body, then arising, he muttered:
"Dead as the other! Well, it's so much ammunition saved, at any rate. It is a bad job, though, but it was either I or them, and they would have it!" he muttered, as he returned to where his hat lay, brushing the dust from his garments.
"New hat spoiled—item first; bullet-hole in shoulder, another. Well, I don't know but what they are both paid for, now, as it turned out. Confound the thing, how it does smart. Aunt Eunice must bind it up, and then I suppose I must go and tell the neighbors," he mused, as he proceeded toward the house.
"Curse the luck! More delay just when I should be at work; and if I was not very popular before, will this mend matters any? It's lucky they were such dirty hounds, or it might go hard with me. And then these vigilantes—"
"Lord 'a' massy! Marse Clay," cried a husky, wheezing voice, as a negro woman came waddling from around the house. "Is you done kilt, honey?"
"Not quite, aunty," laughed Poynter. "But I might have been. Come," he added, entering the building, "get some rags and bind up my shoulder."