The light disappeared from the crack and Harris pressed the trigger. With the roar of his gun a shape pitched down across the door of the shop. Some unseen hands caught the man by the feet and as he was dragged back from sight Harris saw the red handkerchief which had served as a mask. From all along the row of buildings a fire was opened on the bunk house. Apparently one man was detailed to search out a certain crevice between the logs. Harris threw himself flat against the lower log which barely shielded him. One rifleman covered a crack breast-high, another the one next below, drilling it at six-inch intervals. Shreds of 'dobe chinking littered the room. The balls which found an entrance splintered through the bunks and buried themselves in the logs of the far wall. A third marksman worked on the lower crack. Puffs of 'dobe pulverized before Harris's eyes as the systematic fire crept toward him down the crack in six-inch steps. A flash of dust a few inches before his nose half blinded him. The next shot drilled through an inch above his head, flattened sidewise on the floor, and a fragment of shell-jacket, stripped in passing through, scored his cheek and nicked his ear. The next fanned his shirt across the shoulders and the biting scraps of 'dobe stung his back. The shooting suddenly ceased. Billie Warren, dazedly indifferent as to what should happen to the Three Bar since the wreck of the lower field, had roused to action the instant she saw the spurts of chinking fly from the cracks of the bunk house before the fusillade sent after Harris. She threw open the door and stepped out, holding up one hand. "Don't kill him!" she commanded. "If you fire another shot at him I'll put up every dollar I own to hang every man that ever rode a foot with Lang! Do you hear that, Lang?" "Lang's in Idaho," a voice growled surlily from the shop. "None of us ever rode with Lang. We're from every brand on the range--and we're going to burn you squatters out." "Draw off and let us ride away," she said. "You can have the Three Bar." "All but Harris," the voice called back. "He stays!" She threw up the rifle she carried and touched it off at a crack near the shop door. As the splinters flew from the edge of the log a figure sprang past the door for the safety of the opposite side and she shot again, then emptied the magazine at a crevice on the side where he had taken refuge. "Get back inside, damn you!" a voice shouted. "We're going to wreck the Three Bar--and you with it if you stand in the way. Get back out of line!" Harris knew that the men would not be deterred in their purpose--would sacrifice her along with the rest if necessary to accomplish their end. "Get back, Billie," he called from the bunk house. "You can't do us any good out there. Take the little cabin and sit tight. We'll beat them off." A haze of smoke showed through the storeroom door, a bright tongue of flame leaping back of it.