Then she dropped forward again and watched the distance closing down.
Nearer––nearer––nearer!
The note rose another notch.
Never in his life had El Rey run as he ran now. Always he had had reserves. He had them now. The bottom of his power was not reached.
Bolt was doing his best. Once he threw up his head and foam flew on the wind––red foam that shot back and whipped on Tharon’s hand, a wet pink stain, thinned and faded.
At that sight an exultant cry, savage, inhuman, ugly, burst from her throat.
She was within long gunshot now––was closing her fingers lightly on the blue gun-butts–––. 291
Courtrey heard that cry.
He rose in his saddle––turned––flashed up his hand and fired. Quick as the motion of the gun man was, Tharon Last was quicker. She dropped over El Rey’s shoulder like a cat, firing as she went.
Courtrey’s bullet clipped the cantle of the big saddle an inch above her flattened leg across it. Hers did something else––what she had dreamed of. It struck that other wrist of Courtrey’s, the left––and sent his six-gun tumbling.