Don rode straight to the Circle J P ranch. He swung from the saddle and dropped the lines in front of the house. As he did so, he noticed two buzzards circling high in the sky.
Prowers must have seen him coming, for when Don turned toward the porch the little man was standing there watching him. Black moved forward, spurs jingling.
His eyes did not lift from those of Prowers. At the foot of the steps he stopped. “I’ve come after you, Jake,” he said evenly.
The skim-milk eyes in the leathery face narrowed. They were hard and shining pin-points of wary challenge.
“What for, Don?”
“For blowin’ up the dam, you yellow wolf.”
“Then come a-shootin’.”
The forty-fives blazed. The roar of them filled the air. Across the narrow range between the two men bullets stabbed with deadly precision.
Black swayed on his feet. He knew he was shot through and through in several places, that he could count his life in minutes, perhaps in seconds. Through the smoke rifts he could see the crouching figure flinging death at him. Still firing, he sank to his knees. He could no longer lift the revolver, and as his body plunged to the ground the last cartridge was exploded into the sod.
Down the steps toward him rolled the shrunken form of his foe, slowly, without volition, every muscle lax. They lay close to each other, only their eyes alive to glare defiance till the film of dissolution shadowed them.