“We’d better make a getaway,” the other man said hurriedly. “This ain’t no healthy place for us.”
The gorilla-man struck again and broke the hammer of his revolver.
“Out this way,” he said, and pushed through the swinging doors to the bar.
The heavy blows had beaten McClintock down so that he slid from the chair. The doctor who attended him afterwards said that the effect of them was temporarily to act as a counter-shock to the bullet wounds. His senses cleared and his hand found the revolver. He was cocking it as the second assassin vanished through the swing doors.
Scot concentrated his strength and energy, focussing every ounce of power left in him to do the thing in his mind. With his left hand as a support he raised the six-shooter and fired through the swing door. Then, inch by inch, he crawled forward to the barroom entrance, shoved the door open with his shoulder, and tried again to lift the forty-five. It was not in his ebbing forces to raise the heavy weapon from the floor.
But there was no need to use it again. The mule-skinner Hopkins lay face down on the floor, arms flung wide. Scot’s shot through the swing door had killed him instantly.
Baldy knelt beside his friend. “Did they get you, old-timer?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“I’m still kicking. Send for Hugh,” the wounded man gasped.
Half an hour later Hugh stood beside the bedside of his brother. Scot’s face was bloodless to the lips. He was suffering a good deal and was very weak. The doctor had told Hugh that he would not live till morning.
“I’m going—to—make it,” Scot said faintly.