There was a muffled shock: the man was flung, like foam from the crest of a breaker, half across the corral. Three other men's forms were in the ring, a couple of revolver shots rang out, and then, side by side, Tony and the bull lay upon that sandy battlefield, reddened with the life-blood streaming slowly from each. As his companions closed round him Tony managed to struggle to his elbow, saying, with a smile which spoke volumes for his pluck: 'Sorry you killed the scrubber, boys, he'd a been kinder like a monument for me, 'cos you see he has got the Rosebud brand now; you bet, he's got the Rosebud brand----' Poor Tony! those were his last words, and as his comrades carried him off his last battlefield they felt that the best rough-rider and the gentlest, most kind-hearted giant amongst them had done his last day's work. A few days later, when the sun was setting on the prairie, making the whole sky crimson, and flooding the world with its last rays of light, they buried him by the river's edge, Nares reading the funeral service over him, who, though perhaps he had said less of religion than most men, had lived a life so close to Nature, and face to face with God and His works, that he must have learnt the great secret and loved the Creator, as he undoubtedly in his own rough way loved all His beautiful creation. Over Tony's grave the men set up a rough headstone, or cross, rather, of timber, and on it they nailed the bleached skull and bones of his dead enemy; while underneath Snap burned with a hot iron some words which he remembered from Bret Harte:-- A roughish chap in his talk was he, And an awkward man in a row; But he never funked, and he never lied, I guess he never knowed how. CHAPTER XIII WINTER COMES WITH THE 'WAVIES'