It was Shorty. His revolver flashed at the same instant. Doble staggered, steadied himself, and fired. The forty-fives roared. Yellow flames and smoke spurted. The bulldog barked. Dave's parlor toy had come into action. Out of the battle Shorty and Sanders came erect and uninjured. Doble was lying on the ground, his revolver smoking a foot or two from the twitching, outstretched hand. The outlaw was dead before Shorty turned him over. A bullet had passed through the heart. Another had struck him on the temple, a third in the chest. "We got him good," said Shorty. "It was comin' to him. I reckon you don't know that he fired the chaparral on purpose. Wanted to wipe out the Jackpot, I s'pose. Yes, Dug sure had it comin' to him." Dave said nothing. He looked down at the man, eyes hard as jade, jaw clamped tight. He knew that but for Shorty's arrival he would probably be lying there himself. "I was aimin' to shoot it out with him before I heard of this last scullduggery. Soon as the kid woke me I hustled up my intentions." The bad man looked at Dave's weapon with the flicker of a smile on his face. "He called it a popgun. I took notice it was a right busy li'l' plaything. But you got yore nerve all right. I'd say you hadn't a chance in a thousand. You played yore hand fine, keelin' over so's he'd come clost enough for you to get a crack at him. At that, he'd maybe 'a' got you if I hadn't drapped in." "Yes," said Sanders. He walked across to the corral fence, where Joyce sat huddled against the lower bars. She lifted her head and looked at him from wan eyes out of which the life had been stricken. They stared at him in dumb, amazed questioning. Dave lifted her from the ground. "I... I thought you... were dead," she whispered. "Not even powder-burnt. His six-shooter outranged mine. I was trying to get him closer." "Is he...?" "Yes. He'll never trouble any of us again." She shuddered in his arms. Dave ached for her in every tortured nerve. He did not know, and it was not his place to ask, what price she had had to pay. Presently she told him, not in words, without knowing what he was suffering for her. A ghost of a smile touched her eyes. "I knew you would come. It's all right now." His heart leaped. "Yes, it's all right, Joyce." She recurred to her fears for him. "You're not ... hiding any wounds from me? I saw you fall and lie there while he shot at you." "He never touched me." She disengaged herself from his arms and looked at him, wan, haggard, unshaven, eyes sunken, a tattered wretch scarred with burns. "What have you done to yourself?" she asked, astonished at his appearance. "Souvenirs of the fire," he told her. "They'll wash and wear off. Don't suppose I look exactly pretty." He had never looked so handsome in her eyes. CHAPTER XLV JOYCE MAKES PIES