"Then get off my property. Go on, get!" McCullough came down the steps and began to walk slowly toward Watts and the marshal. "Get out of my yard!" he said. He did not raise his voice. "You're bucking the law now, John McCullough," Watts warned. "Get out of my yard!" McCullough said again. He was about three steps away from Watts. He took another step. Watts had been carrying a pistol in his hand. His arm started to swing up. McCullough let out a wordless bark: "_Haugh!_" and the axe flipped in a short swift arc. He stepped over Watts' body, the axe again dangling limply from his hand with a few thin threads of blood spattering from it. "Get out of my yard!" he said. The nearer men backed away slowly, not really frightened, but uncertain. Single men have faced down mobs many times, but more have been killed by them. In a saner moment, McCullough may have known this, but his ductless glands were in full control now. He did not really care, he rather hoped, if he thought at all, that there _would_ be a fight. He knew he could kill any man who stood against him. Off to one side, a dozen yards away, a man tentatively lifted a pistol. McCullough caught the movement from the corner of his eye and turned and began walking toward the man, head a little forward, bright, slightly unfocussed eyes intent in his expressionless face. The men between the two moved back, leaving a clear path. The man with the pistol glanced to either side and saw he now stood alone, all alone. There is a nightmare some men know--the implacable deadly-eyed enemy coming with the red, wetly gleaming steel while you stand all alone with the pistol that poufs weakly with the bullets dribbling from the muzzle. The man jerked the trigger and spun about and ran without waiting to see where his shot had gone, and the charge snapped two feet over McCullough's head. McCullough turned again toward the main body of the mob and walked slowly forward, his eyes searching the faces around him hungrily. "Get out of my yard!" he said woodenly. The men he faced were not cowards, few men on that world were, and they had been killing natives all afternoon, their blood was up; but this was different, this was one of their own kind they faced now. If they had been able to see him as another outcast, as a traitor aiding the enemy against them, it would have made things easier. In spite of what Watts had said, however, they knew this was not true. McCullough was not a 'native-lover', he was not upholding the Centaurans, what he was upholding was the right of a citizen to hold his own opinion and keep his home as his castle--two rights which are extremely important in any frontier culture.