"If he rides one of us down he may get away." "We have got to stop him," said Corporal Payne.
Once more the swaying man straightened himself, flung his head back, and with a little breathless laugh drove his horse furiously at Payne.
He was very close now, and his face showed livid under the smearing dust, but his lips were drawn up in a little bitter smile as he rode straight upon the leveled carbines.

Payne, at least, understood it, and the absence of flung-up hand or cry.

Courthorne's inborn instincts were strong to the end.
There was a hoarse shout from the trooper, and no answer, and a carbine flashed.

Then Courthorne loosed the bridle, reeled sideways from the saddle, rolled half round with one foot in the stirrup and his head upon the ground, and was left behind, while the riderless horse and pursuer swept past the two men who, avoiding them by a hairsbreadth, sat motionless a moment in the thin drifting smoke.
Then Corporal Payne swung himself down, and, while the trooper followed, stooped over the man who lay, a limp huddled object, in the trail.

He blinked up at them out of eyes that were almost closed.
"I think you have done for me," he said.
Payne glanced at his comrade.