up the platform. At the sound of Hall's charge, the gunner wheeled around from the window to guard his rear.
The fellow came around with a quick spin on his heel, gun slung high, ready to throw it down for a shot. Hall was not more than twenty feet away, his white shirt making him a prominent target. He ducked to rush under the gun, aiming to tackle the fellow low and knock him off his feet.
Hall was not conscious of any danger of his own. His only thought was, as he bent low and shot ahead with all the speed a good toe-hold on the dry boards could give him, that the fool man would kill somebody if he wasn't stopped. Not him; not Andrew Hall, rushing up the platform where it came down to the cinders like a wedge; no thought that the pistol held on a level with the fellow's hat-brim was training down to stop him in his charge. Only that this fool man would kill somebody if he wasn't stopped.
That was the way of it that second when Hall came under the lantern: the gun coming around in a long, easy-going, confident swing, June-bugs bumping the lantern close by the wide hat of the gaunt, long-legged man. Then there was a shot, and the jolt of the collision. The gunman was scooped up in the rush as if a locomotive had hit him, thrown over Hall's shoulder clear of the platform, a humiliated wreck among the ballast between the rails.
In a moment the platform sounded to the rush of feet. Dine Fergus was the first to reach the spot, closely followed by Larrimore, others pressing forward into the light like closing water. Dr. Hall stood a moment where he had come up short after heaving the gunman over his
