Kells was on his knees now with only one gun. This wavered and fell,
wavered and fell. His left arm hung broken. But his face flashed
white through the thin, drifting clouds of smoke.
Besides Gulden the bandit Pike was the only one not down, and he was
hard hit. When he shot his last he threw the gun away, and, drawing
a knife, he made at Kells. Kells shot once more, and hit Pike, but
did not stop him. Silence, after the shots and yells, seemed weird,
and the groping giant, trying to follow Pike, resembled a huge
phantom. With one wrench he tore off a leg of the overturned table
and brandished that. He swayed now, and there was a whistle where
before there had been a roar.
Pike fell over the body of Blicky and got up again. The bandit
leader staggered to his feet, flung the useless gun in Pike's face,
and closed with him in weak but final combat. They lurched and
careened to and fro, with the giant Gulden swaying after them. Thus
they struggled until Pike moved under Gulden's swinging club. The
impetus of the blow carried Gulden off his balance. Kells seized the
haft of the knife still protruding from the giant's neck, and he
pulled upon it with all his might. Gulden heaved up again, and the
movement enabled Kells to pull out the knife. A bursting gush of
blood, thick and heavy, went flooding before the giant as he fell.
Kells dropped the knife, and, tottering, surveyed the scene before
him--the gasping Gulden, and all the quiet forms. Then he made a few
halting steps, and dropped near the door.
Joan tried to rush out, but what with the unsteadiness of her limbs
and Jim holding her as he went out, too, she seemed long in getting
to Kells.
She knelt beside him, lifted his head. His face was white--his eyes
were open. But they were only the windows of a retreating soul. He
did not know her. Consciousness was gone. Then swiftly life fled.