It passed, and again there leaped into his eyes the great light Jud Carpenter had seen there that morning, and slipping the cartridges out of the barrel's breech, he looked up peacefully with the halo of a holy light around his eyes as he said: "Oh, God, and I thank Thee--for this--this touch again! Hold the little spark in my heart--hold it, oh, God, but for a little while till the temptation is gone, and I shall rest--I shall rest." "Shoot--Richard Travis--why the devil don't you shoot?" they shouted. He raised his rifle again, this time with a flourish which made some of the mob think he was taking unnecessary risk to attract the attention of the grim blacksmith who stood, pistol in hand, his piercing eyes scanning the crowd. He stood by the side of Tom Travis, his bodyguard to the last. "Jack--Jack--" kept whispering to him the old preacher, "don't shoot till you're obleeged to,--maybe God'll open a way, maybe you won't have to spill blood. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord." Jack smiled. It was a strange smile--of joy, in the risking glory of the old life--the glory of blood-letting, of killing, of death. And sorrow--sorrow in the new. "Stand pat, stand pat, Bishop," he said; "you all know the trade. Let me who have defied the law so long, let me now stand for it--die for it. It's my atonement--ain't that the word? Ain't that what you said about that there Jesus Christ, the man you said wouldn't flicker even on the Cross, an' wouldn't let us flicker if we loved Him--Hol' him to His promise, now, Bishop. It's time for us to stand pat. No--I'll not shoot unless I see some on 'em makin' a too hasty movement of gun-arm toward Cap'n--" Had Richard Travis looked from his horse down into the crowd he had seen another sight. Man can think and do but one thing at a time, but oh, the myrmidons of God's legions of Cause and Effect! Below him stood a boy, his face white in the terrible tragedy of his determination. And as Richard Travis threw up his empty rifle, the octagonal barrel of the pistol in the boy's hand leaped up and came straight to the line of Richard Travis's heart. But before the boy could fire Travis saw the hawk-like flutter of the blacksmith's pistol arm, as it measured the distance with the old quick training of a bloody experience, and Richard Travis smiled, as he saw the flash from the outlaw's pistol and felt that uncanny chill starting in his marrow again, leap into a white heat to the shock of the ball, and he pitched limply forward, slipped from his horse and went down on the ground murmuring, "Tom--Tom--safe, and Alice--he shot at last--and--thank God for the touch again!" He lay quiet, feeling the life blood go out of him. But with it came an exhalation he had never felt before--a glory that, instead of taking, seemed to give him life.