The stage driver was talking. “You betcha, Colonel. If us old-timers had the say-so we’d elect you by a mile. Sure would. That slick scalawag Dodson, why he—he——” Scot’s first warning came from Baldy’s consternation. His eyes popped out. They were staring at some apparition in the back of the room. The words of his sentence stuck in the roof of his mouth. Almost simultaneously came the click McClintock knew from of old. He whirled in the chair dragging at his revolver. It caught on his coat. Two bolts of lightning flamed. The crash of heavy thunder filled the room. Scot sagged in his seat, the curly head falling forward heavily on the chest. From his slack fingers the revolver dropped. Again the guns boomed. Another jagged knife thrust of pain went through and through Scot’s body. “Got him. Got him good, Sam,” an exultant voice announced hoarsely through the smoke. A hulking figure slouched forward cautiously. The victim lay huddled in the chair motionless, both hands empty of weapons. No sign of life showed in the lax body. “Always said I’d git him.” Dutch broke into a storm of oaths. He reversed his revolver and struck the fallen head savagely with the butt. “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. “Wire—for—Mollie. Tell her—not to—worry.”