“Fella leaned up agin’st the rock, right here,” he re-enacted the scene mentally. “Lined his sights on Carson. Carson was comin’ up t’ other side from over Crow Point way. Fella drilled him plumb center. Went out an’ took seven thousand out o’ Carson’s saddle bags. Stood right here. Standin’ on the ground. No hawss-tracks closer’n that cat-claw yonder. Good-size’ fella. Had to be, to rest his rifle in that crotch.” Mechanically he studied the rock wall and the sand that swept away from its foot. Something bright in the sand, in the very spot where they had found the murderer’s tracks. He stooped. But it was only a glassy bit of rock. He held it, staring absently, his mind upon the mystery. From the little sand dunes behind him, to northward, came the flat, vicious report of a rifle. A bullet slapped the rock wall almost in his face. It had passed within six inches of his head. Instantly, another followed. Ware’s Kid moved like a rattler striking. He moved automatically, but with a precision, an economy, of movement that could not have been bettered by rehearsals times without number. He was sheltered from the bullets within two steps, standing behind his stallion’s bulk. His hand slapped the saddle horn; he was in the saddle without touching stirrups and lying flat upon the black’s neck. The great rowels dug the stallion’s flanks; he surged forward magnificently; within two strides he was galloping. The Ranger, chased by bullets that buzzed spitefully about his ears, swung the black around the end of the Castle. Half-way down the length of the stone wall he slid the stallion to a halt. Here was a place where he could peer across the top between two teeth of rock. His great sombrero hung down his back by the chinstrap; from the scabbard beneath the left fender had leaped a sleek Winchester carbine. He cuddled the carbine in the crook of his arm as, with green-gray eyes squinting coldly, he studied the sand dunes behind which his antagonist lay hidden. A thin smoke-cloud was drifting upward above the dunes. Ware’s Kid rested the carbine in the crotch of the wall-top. He sighted carefully and drove three .44’s to dust along the crest of the dunes, some fifteen inches apart. Instantly the other rifleman replied with a rolling quartette of bullets that bunched most efficiently beneath the Ranger’s carbine-muzzle. He watched narrowly without replying in kind. At last he shrugged and whirled the stallion, to ride off south and east toward the O-Bar ranch-house.