snarl. The Happy Family looked, then stared.

Blink relaxed, shrugged his shoulders and grinned unmirthfully. He got
up, pulled up his chaps with the peculiar, hitching gesture which
comes with long practice and grows to be second nature, and stared
back defiantly at the wondering faces lighted by the dancing flames.
He turned his back coolly upon them and walked away to where his horse
stood, took up the reins and stuck his toe in the stirrup, went up and
landed in the saddle ready for anything. Then he wheeled the big
sorrel so that he faced those at the camp-fire.

"A man's a damned fool, Andy Green, to see more than is meant for him
to see. He's plumb crazy to go round blatting all he knows. You won't
tell that tale again, _mi amigo!_"

There was the pop of a pistol, a puff of blue against the gray, and
then the fog reached out and gathered Blink and the sorrel to itself.
Only the clatter of galloping hoofs came to them from behind the damp
curtain. Andy Green was lying on his back in the grass, his cigarette
smoking dully in his fingers, a fast widening red streak trailing down
from his temple.

The Happy Family rose like a covey of frightened chickens before the
echoes were done playing with the gun-bark. On the heels of Blink's
shot came the crack of Happy Jack's "howitzer" as he fired blindly
toward the hoof-beats. There was more shooting while they scurried to
where their horses, snorting excitement, danced uneasily at the edge
of the bushes. Only one man spoke, and that was Pink, who stopped just
as he was about to swing into the saddle.