I wanted, more than anything, to get the man who had shot down Shylock.
That isn't a pretty confession, but it has the virtue of being the truth.
So, while Frosty fired at the spurts of red and cursed me for stopping
there, I crouched behind my dead horse and fought back with evil in my
heart and a mighty poor aim.

Then, just as the first excitement was hardening into deliberate
malevolence, came a clatter from beyond the house, and a chorus of
familiar yells and the spiteful snapping of pistols. It was our
boys--thirty of the biggest-hearted, bravest fellows that ever wore spurs,
and, as they came thundering down to us, I could make out the bent, wiry
figure of old Perry Potter in the lead, yelling and shooting wickeder than
any one else in the crowd.

"Ellis!" he shouted, and I lifted up my voice and let him know that, like
Webster, "I still lived." They came on with a rush that the King faction
could not stay, to where I was ambushed between the solid walls of two
sheds, with Shylock's bulk before me and Frosty swearing at my back.

"Horse hit?" snapped Perry Potter breathlessly. "I knowed it. Just like
yuh. Get onto this'n uh mine--he's the best in the bunch--and light
out--if yuh still want t' catch that train."

I came back from the primitive with a rush. I no longer wanted to kill and
kill. Dad was lying "critically ill" in Frisco--and Frisco was a long way
off! The miles between bulked big and black before me, so that I shivered
and forgot my quarrel with King. I must catch that train.

I went with one leap up into the saddle as Perry Potter slid down, thought
vaguely that I never could ride with the stirrups so short, but that there