He jumped back against the wall, dragging her with him, and began to shake her as a dog does a rat. And then the old Terry clock did that for which it surely must have been originally made. For, as his shoulders struck the wall, his head knocked away the support of the bracket that held the clock. Involuntarily he ducked his head. It was the worst thing he could have done, giving, as it did, the clock an extra foot to fall. It fell. One corner struck him fairly on the temple and knocked him cold as a wedge.
When Hazel's reeling senses had reëstablished their equilibrium, she found herself on the floor, lying across the inert legs of Rafe Tuckleton. She raised herself on her two arms and looked at him. He was breathing very lightly. It occurred to her that it would not worry her overmuch if he breathed not at all.
She dragged herself on hands and knees to where he had thrown his six-shooter. She picked it up and threw out the cylinder. Evidently Rafe was accustomed to carry his hammer on an empty chamber, for there were four cartridges and a spent shell in the cylinder. She ejected the spent shell, crawled back to the senseless Rafe and plucked two cartridges from his belt.
She loaded those two empty chambers and cocked the gun. Then she pulled herself up into a chair at the table, and leaning across the cloth, trained the six-shooter on Rafe's stomach.
And as she sat there watching a senseless man through the gunsights, it suddenly seemed to her that she was not one person, but two,—herself and a stranger. And the Hazel Walton that had gone through the evening's adventures was the stranger. She herself apparently stood at one side observing. But she saw the room and its contents with new eyes, the eyes of the stranger. It was a most amazing feeling, and she was oddly frightened while it lasted.
Slowly the feeling passed as her muscles renewed their strength, and her jangled nerves steadied and quieted. She came back to herself with a jerk as Rafe Tuckleton stirred and put his hand to his head. She saw the hand come away covered with blood. That side of Rafe's head being in the shadow she had not previously noted that it had sustained a shrewd cut.
Rafe groaned a little. He rolled over and sat up, his chin sagging forward on his chest. He moved his head and looked at her vacantly. The blood ran down his cheek and dripped slowly off his chin.
The light of reason glared of a sudden in Rafe's eyes. She could see that he was absorbing the situation from every angle.
"I'll give you five minutes to pull yourself together and get out," she announced clearly. "If you're still here by the time I've counted three hundred I'll begin to shoot."
Rafe started to go by the time she reached sixty. With the six-shooter pointing at the small of his back, her finger on the trigger, step by step she drove him out of the house to where he had left his horse.