Presently I had him crucified: his one outstretched arm under my knees, his other arm tethered by my two hands, my body across his chest, while his legs threshed vainly. I looked down into his bulging crooked eyes, glaring back presumably into my eyes, and might draw breath. "'Nuf? Cry "Nuf,'" I bade. "'Nuf! Say "Nuf,'" echoed the crowd. He strained again, convulsive; and relaxed. "'Nuf!" he panted through bared teeth. "Lemme up, Mister." "This settles it?" "I said "Nuf,'" he growled. With quick movement I sprang clear of him, to my feet. He lay for a moment, baleful, and slowly scrambled up. On a sudden, as he faced me, his hand shot downward--I heard the surge and shout of men and women, to the stunning report of his revolver ducked aside, felt my left arm jerk and sting--felt my own gun explode in my hand (and how it came there I did not know)--beheld him spin around and collapse; an astonishing sight. CHAPTER XVII THE TRAIL FORKS So there I stood, amidst silence, gaping foolishly, breathing hard, my revolver smoking in my fingers and my enemy in a shockingly prone posture at my feet, gradually reddening the white of the torn soil. He was upon his face, his revolver hand outflung. He was harmless. The moment had arrived and passed. I was standing here alive, I had killed him. Then I heard myself babbling. "Have I killed him? I didn't want to. I tell you, I didn't want to." Figures rushed in between. Hands grasped me, impelled me away, through a haze; voices spoke in my ear while I feebly resisted, a warm salty taste in my throat. "I killed him. I didn't want to kill him. He made me do it. He shot first." "Yes, yes," they said, soothing gruffly. "Shore he did; shore you didn't. It's all right. Come along, come along." Then---- "Pick him up. He's bad hurt, himself. See that blood? No, 'tain't his arm, is it? He's bleedin' internal. Whar's the hole? Wait! He's busted something." They would have carried me. "No," I cried, while their bearded faces swam. "He said "Nuf'--he shot me afterward. Not bad, is it? I can walk." "Not bad. Creased you in the arm, if that's all. What you spittin' blood for?" As they hustled me onward I wiped my swollen lips; the back of my hand seemed to be covered with thin blood. "Where he struck me, once," I wheezed. "Yes, mebbe so. But come along, come along. We'll tend to you." The world had grown curiously darkened, so that we moved as through an obscuring veil; and I dumbly wondered whether this was night (had it been morning or evening when I started for the pond?) or whether I was dying myself. I peered and again made out the sober, stern faces hedging me, but they gave me no answer to my mutely anxious query. Across a great distance we stumbled by the wagons (the same wagons of a time agone), and halted at a fire. "Set down. Fetch a blanket, somebody. Whar's the water? Set down till we look you over." I let them sit me down. "Wash your mouth out."