The stage was empty for them of anything that moved, save only Craddock's horse, which Morgan's last shot, confident as he was when he aimed it, had no more than maimed with a broken leg. To the right of them Fred Stilwell lay, his face in the dust, his arms outspread, his hat close by; on the other hand the Dutchman's body sprawled, his legs, flung out as if he had died running. And near this unsightly wreckage of a worthless wretch Morgan's horse stretched, in the lazy posture of an animal asleep in a sunny pasture. Behind them the fire that was eating one side of the square away rose and bent, roared and crackled, sighed and hissed, flinging up long flames which broke as they stabbed into the smoke. Morgan felt the fire hot on his neck as he bent over Craddock, throwing the strain of every tendon to hold the old villain to the ground. Craddock writhed, jointless as a snake, it seemed, under the grip of Morgan's hand at his spiney throat, squirmed and turned and fought to his knees. They struggled and battled breast to breast, until they stood on their feet, locked in a clinch out of which but one of them, Morgan was determined, should come a living man. Morgan had dropped his empty revolver when he flung himself on Craddock. There was no inequality between them except such as nature had given in the strength of arm and back. They swayed in silent, terrible determination each to have the other's life, and Morgan had a glimpse, as he turned, of women and children watching them from the corner near the bank, huddled groups out of which he knew many a hope went out for his victorious issue. Craddock was a man of sinews as hard as bow strings; his muscles were like dried beef. Strong as Morgan was, he felt that he was losing ground. Then, by some trick learned perhaps in savage camps, Craddock lifted him, and flung him with stunning force against the hard ground. There they rolled, clawing, striking, grappling at each other's throats. As if surf made sport of them on the shelving sands they rolled, one upper-most now, the other then. And they fought and rolled until Morgan felt something hard under his oppressed back, and groped for it in the star-shot agony of sinewy fingers choking out his life. His empty gun. It seemed that he grasped it in delirium, and struck with it in the blindness of hovering death. When Morgan staggered to his feet there was blood in his mouth; the sound of the fiery turmoil around him was hushed in the roar of blood in his ears. He stood weakly a moment, looking at the pistol in his hand. The blow he had laid along Craddock's head had broken the cylinder pin. Meditatively Morgan looked at it again, then threw it down as an abandoned and useless thing. It fell close by where Craddock lay, blood running from a wound on his temple. CHAPTER XXVII ABSOLUTION