"Meanin’ yo’re Christ?" sneered Hopalong. "Did you kill th’ other feller like that? If I ’d ’a’ knowed that I ’d ’a’ slapped yore dawg’s face at th’ bunkhouse an’ made you take an even break. Shore you got nerve enough to shoot straight if I looks at you while yo ’re aimin’?" He laughed cynically. "I don’t want to close my eyes." The foreman’s face went white and he half lowered the rifle as he took a step forward. Hopalong leaped sideways and his arm straightened out, the other staggering under the blow of the missile. Leaping forward Hopalong ran into a cloud of smoke and staggered as he jumped to close quarters. His hand smashed full in the foreman’s face and his knee sank in the foreman’s groin. They went down, the foreman weak from the kick and Hopalong sick and weak from the bullet that had grazed the bone of his bad thigh. And lying on the ground they fought in a daze, each incapable of inflicting serious injury for awhile. But the foreman grew stronger as his enemy grew weaker from loss of blood and, wriggling from under his furious antagonist, he reached for his Colt. Hopalong threw himself forward and gripped the gun wrist between his teeth and closed his jaws until they ached. But the foreman, pounding ceaselessly on the other’s face with his free hand, made the jaws relax and drew the weapon. Then he saw all the stars in the heavens as Hopalong’s head crashed full against his jaw and before he could recover the gun was pinned under his enemy’s knee. Hopalong’s head crashed again against the foreman’s jaw and his right hand gripped the corded throat while the left, its thumb inside the foreman’s cheek and its fingers behind an ear, tugged and strained at the distorted face. Growling like wild beasts they strained and panted, and then, suddenly, Hopalong’s grip relaxed and he made one last, desperate effort to bring his strength back into one furious attack; but in vain. The battered foreman, quick to sense the situation, wrestled his adversary to one side long enough to grab the Colt from under the shifting knee. As he clutched it a shot rang out and the weapon dropped from his nerveless hand before he could pull the trigger. An exulting, savage yell roared in his ears and in the next instant he seemed to leave the ground and soar through space. He dropped ten feet away and lay dazed and helpless as a knee crashed against his chest. Sammy Porter, his face working curiously with relief and rage, rolled him against the wall of the defile and struck him over the head with a rifle butt, first disarming him.