Curly saw red. Surrender nothing! He would go down fighting. As fast as he could blaze he emptied Mac’s gun. When the smoke cleared the man who had ordered him to give up was slipping from his horse. Curly was surprised, but he knew he must have hit him by chance.
“We got him. His gun’s empty,” someone shouted.
Cautiously they closed in, keeping him covered all the time. Of a sudden the plain tilted up to meet the sky. Flandrau felt himself swaying on his feet. Everything went black. The boy had fainted.
When he came to himself strange faces were all around him, and there were no bodies to go with them. They seemed to float about in an odd casual sort of way. Then things cleared.
“He’s coming to all right,” one said.
“Good. I’d hate to have him cheat the rope,” another cried with an oath.
“That’s right. How is Cullison?”
This was said to another who had just come up.
“Hard hit. Looks about all in. Got him in the side.”
The rage had died out of Curly. In a flash he saw all that had come of their drunken spree: the rustling of the Bar Double M stock, the discovery, the death of his friend and maybe of Cullison, the certain punishment that would follow. He was a horse thief caught almost in the act. Perhaps he was a murderer too. And the whole thing had been entirely unpremeditated.