“I hear you,” he said quietly. “Go ahead, shoot. You’ll be proud of yourself after you’ve put out my light. You’re a powerful brave man, Steele.” Robin said that casually, for all his heart was beating double-quick. Whether he rose to Steele’s taunting or not the man would kill him. Intention, determination, were explicit on Shining Mark’s face, in his stony stare, the slow withdrawal of his gun from its scabbard. Robin was a menace Steele must remove for his own safety. That cold feeling went over Robin again in a wave. But all the time his stockinged toes were pressing harder and harder into the dirt floor, the muscles of his legs were tensing. At least he would not die like a tame sheep, bleating for mercy where there was no mercy. And when the gun leaped clear with a sudden jerk, as if Steele had made up his mind to get the job done, Robin leaped also. Shining Mark had made the mistake of staying too close, of miscalculating the distance an active man could hurl himself with the speed of a winking eyelid, when moved by a desperate resolve. Robin did not strike. He clutched with both hands for that gun, thrust it aside. Mark Steele was a strong and active man himself. For a few seconds they struggled. Robin clamped both hands over the gun, turning it back on Mark, jammed him against the wall. He was the heavier, the stronger of the two, but he could not tear loose the weapon from Steele’s grip. To loose one hand and strike was dangerous. To let go and stoop for his own weapon now fallen to the floor meant that Steele would kill him as he stooped. Any moment Thatcher might enter. Then of a surety he was a dead man. And it was more fitting Robin felt, with a fury that burned him, that Steele or Thatcher, or both, should die if death was to stalk in that camp. Slowly he turned the muzzle back toward Steele. One of his fingers slipped inside the trigger guard. His thumb hooked around the curved hammer. He jabbed Steele suddenly with one knee, and in the momentary relaxation of the man’s grip Robin managed to pull the trigger. The report of the .45 was like a cannon blast in the room. Shining Mark let go, left the gun in Robin’s hand. His fingers fumbled at the base of his throat. Then he sagged and weaved and his knees doubled under him. He became a sprawling figure face to the floor, with strange spasmodic twitching of his outstretched fingers. Robin retrieved his own gun. His rifle stood by the wall. He picked the Winchester up. There was still another snake to scotch. Like a wolf at bay or a tiger in the circle of beaters pure savagery was driving Robin now. Every primitive instinct buried deep in man was on top. He opened the door. For the moment, rifle in hand, with that dark rage upon him, Robin would have faced all the fiends of hell itself--and Thatcher was only a man.