puzzle. A more definite snap came to his words. "That helps, Heck. It is still a gamble. I am taking all the responsibility for failure. That's all I'll say. Any objections?"
"You're the boss," muttered Fitzgibbon.
"Lead off," put in Seastrom. "One man's guess is as good as another in this country and you seem to guess pretty lucky. Bust the breeze."
"Come on, then," snapped Charterhouse and turned in front of them.
The party gathered speed behind. Fitz was to his left, Seastrom to the right and chuckling softly as if it were some thundering fine midnight party. The stars winked clear and the crisp air fanned against them, carrying the pungency of sage and earth into their nostrils. Leather squealed and the jingle of those many bridle chains made a pleasant melody. Fort Carson broke the distance and presently the avenue of poplars loomed dead ahead. Charterhouse slowed to a walk, pressed on a few yards and halted.
"Seastrom—three men. Down the left side afoot. Three more with me to the right. Fitz, wait with the bunch. If there's a bust of guns, use your ears and judgment, but I think the place is still empty."
There was a soft dismounting and a swift filing off. Seastrom and his followers faded into the blur made by the line of officers' quarters. Clint swung to the opposite side and stopped at an open door of a barrack while his men overshot him and pressed on in quick, sure silence.
No sound came out of the building, no warning of crouched danger. Satisfied, he struck directly down the parade and closed upon the outlying sheds. Nothing here; turning, he saw one of Heck's searchers slide rapidly up. "Clear?"
"I think so."
"Go back and tell Fitz to come along."
Standing there, Clint thought he heard the tremor of moving bodies come along the air; he dropped to the ground. The invisible telegraph was alive, beating out its message, strengthening with each moment. He rose, hurrying back. Fitz led in the party. Charterhouse's word ran together, electric and urgent. "They're coming in. Hustle it, boys. Everybody out of the saddle and into the houses on the east side of the parade ground. Run the horses into that end shed—four men to hold 'em. String out a little so you've all got a good place to sling lead. Hustle it, now. And no firing until you bear me sing out."
"They're sure coming," grunted Fitz briefly.
"Here's where some of them handpicked lilies wilt on the stem," added Heck, strangely subdued. "Man, here's a scrap."
"I'm afraid so," said Charterhouse. "Lets clear out of this plaza. No shooting, boys, until I sound the word."
Standing with his back to a house wall, he listened to the renegades sweep out of the distance and bear down.
And in that lull he reviewed the past days with a queer clarity—old John Nickum dying bravely, the savage growl of Angels, all that trickery, all the vengeance of predatory men seeking to destroy and rob, the glistening evil in Shander's sickly eyes and the animal remorselessness of this callow Curly who advanced so hurriedly. All these facts and scenes flashed across Clint's mind, telling him as a thousand cold words could not that whatever happened this night was only the march of inevitable events, only the blossoming of that deadly flower—hate.
And while Clint's muscles tightened expectantly and his nerves slowly chilled and left him like a thing of stone, he still had time for regret. Men would fall. Good men and bad men. Lives that had so long savored God's fresh sun, keened the crispness of the prairie air, and moved in the vast, heady freedom of this open land, would be snuffed out in the roar of shots. What would be, would be. This was the price paid for safety and orderly justice. In the west it had always been so. Men who lived by the gun died by the gun. Defying all order and transgressing all rules of right, they courted death—and so would they receive it. And with that thought Clint Charterhouse settled his conscience and closed his mind.
A lesser man would have trembled and sickened; a man from a gentler country would have shuddered, flinched away. But all Clint's forefathers had struggled with the same problem from one frontier to another; his thinking was molded by the brutally clear and direct logic of the time. Men had to stand by and be responsible for their acts; men had to pay their bills. That was the whole story. Some day these things would not be, but for the present the rough-handed code prevailed. And he was of that large-boned, tough-fibered fighting type that, once having decided the course, moved ahead relentlessly. A son of the west.
The renegades pounded on, curving around the fort. Charterhouse, frozen against the wall, thought they were sweeping by and started to readjust his plan of battle. But it was only a sort of scouting movement. They circled, swung and started into the plaza from the north side. Heck Seastrom stirred slightly and Charterhouse heard the methodical Fitzgibbon sigh very softly. Curly's men filed past, slackened and bunched up. Men and horses made an irregular bulk out there. For a moment absolute silence reigned, broken at last by the voice of Curly.
"Well, Shander?"
"We'll wait a minute," replied Shander.
"I don't see why we been doing all this fool back and forward moving around the prairie. We've lost a lot of time. It's eight miles to Box M cattle and there'll be a hard ride into Dead Man with 'em. The night ain't so young, either."
"We'll wait a minute."
A few, soft phrases came from Curly, at which Shander sharply checked him. "Never mind. You know what I'm waiting for, but keep it under your tongue."
Heck punched Charterhouse in the ribs, and Charter-house saw men in the rear of Curly's bunch shift. An uneasy sentence ran along the entire line. "Say, ain't there horses up yonder? I thought I heard—"
Charterhouse took a pace forward and spoke, each word falling flatly. "You're trapped. Give in—or fight!"
"By God—!"
The night was streaked suddenly by tangled shadows as Curly's bunch broke, wheeled and raced for protection. A gun flash mushroomed out and then a long and ragged volley smashed into Fort Carson's walls, disturbing the long sleeping ghosts of fighters dead and gone. Charter-house was on his stomach, crying, "Let them have it—let them have it!" and Box M's solid, blasting reply overbore the echoes of that first fire from the renegades. Curly had gone stark mad, his yells shrill as those of a woman, unprintable and weird. He seemed to be beating back one of his own followers, forcing him from flight. Others were in a milling mass near the sheds; Box M men had run out from shelter to cut off retreat that way.
Curly yelled again. "Charterhouse—damn your soul! Stand out and meet me! Where are you—where are you?"
Charterhouse stood up. "Come ahead, Curly."
Lead smashed into the wall behind him like hail. Glass jangled and there was a ripping of wood. A horseman wheeled and aimed at him. It was Curly, still cursing.
Charterhouse met the man with point-blank bullets; the horse swerved, suddenly riderless and got tangled in the porch rail of an adjoining house. Other ponies, saddles empty, were stampeding around the empty plaza. Curly's men were badly split up; a part of them had dismounted and were fighting from individual coverts; another part, taking whatever leadership offered, rode over to a barrack across the plaza and tumbled inside.
Charterhouse called at Heck. "Pick up a few boys and get behind that thing. That's just the sort of a cage I want 'em in." And then, knowing the dispiriting power of a leader's death, he flung his words out into the frenzied plaza. "Curly's dead! Come on, Box M, crush those snipers! Get around—flank 'em—pour the lead!"
"Curly's dead!"
Three of the renegades, still mounted and boxed in one corner of the plaza, seemed to lose reason. They flung themselves diagonally over the open space and drove for liberty. Charterhouse fired; other guns roared in his ears, and he saw a saddle emptied. The other two got past.
There was a wicked slash of bullets down by the shed as the two survivors tried for the prairie and then another horse galloped aimlessly back without guidance. Box M was tasting victory. Punchers sallied out of their protection and alternately ducked and scurried over to smother the isolated