The gambler glanced about him, and down at his horse. If he thought of flight it was useless. His lip curled with contempt.
“Damn your talking, Keith,” he returned savagely. “Let's have it over with,” and spurred his horse. The gun of the other came up.
“Wait!” and Hawley paused, dragging at his rein. “One of us most likely is going to die here; perhaps both. But if either survives he'll need a horse to get out of this alive. Dismount; I'll do the same; step away so the horses are out of range, and then we'll fight it out—is that square?”
Without a word, his eyes gleaming with cunning hatred, the gambler swung down from his saddle onto the sand, his horse interposed between him and the other. Keith did the same, his eyes peering across the back of his animal.
“Now,” he said steadily, “when I count three drive your horse aside, and let go—are you ready?”
“Damn you—yes!”
“Then look out—one! two! three!”
The plainsman struck his horse with the quirt in his left hand, and sprang swiftly aside so as to clear the flank of the animal, his shooting arm flung out. There was a flash of flame across Hawley's saddle, a sharp report, and Keith reeled backward, dropping to his knees, one hand clutching the sand. Again Hawley fired, but the horse, startled by the double report, leaped aside, and the ball went wild. Keith wheeled about, steadying himself with his outstretched hand, and let drive, pressing the trigger, until, through the haze over his eyes, he saw Hawley go stumbling down, shooting wildly as he fell. The man never moved, and Keith endeavored to get up, his gun still held ready, the smoke circling about them. He had been shot treacherously, as a cowardly cur might shoot, and he could not clear his mind of the thought that this last act hid treachery also. But he could not raise himself, could not stand; red and black shadows danced before his eyes; he believed he saw the arm of the other move. Like a snake he crept forward, holding himself up with one hand, his head dizzily reeling, but his gun held steadily on that black, shapeless object lying on the sand. Then the revolver hand began to quiver, to shake, to make odd circles; he couldn't see; it was all black, all nothingness. Suddenly he went down face first into the sand.
They both lay motionless, the thirsty sand drinking in their life blood, Hawley huddled up upon his left side, his hat still shading the glazing eyes, Keith lying flat, his face in the crook of an arm whose hand still gripped a revolver. There was a grim smile on his lips, as if, even as he pitched forward, he knew that, after he had been shot to death, he had gotten his man. The riderless horses gazed at the two figures, and drifted away, slowly, fearfully, still held in mute subjection to their dead masters by dangling reins. The sun blazed down from directly overhead, the heat waves rising and falling, the dead, desolate desert stretching to the sky. An hour, two hours passed. The horses were now a hundred yards away, nose to nose; all else was changeless. Then into the far northern sky there rose a black speck, growing larger and larger; others came from east and west, beating the air with widely outspread wings, great beaks stretched forward. Out from their nests of foulness the desert scavengers were coming for their spoil.