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I know my arms became leaden from swinging my club; my eyes were full of sweat; my breath gasped. A sharp pain in my knee nearly doubled me to the ground and yet I remember clamping to the thought that I must keep my feet, keep my feet at any cost. Then all at once I recalled the fact that I was armed. I jerked out the short-barrelled Colt's 45 and turned it loose in their faces.

Whiteside was at Scotland Yard before him, and when Tarling walked into his room was curiously examining an object which lay before him on a sheet of paper. It was a short-barrelled automatic pistol. "Hullo!" he said, interested. "Is that the gun that killed Thornton Lyne?" "That's the weapon," said the cheerful Whiteside. "An ugly-looking brute, isn't it?" "Where did you say it was discovered?"

Another moment, and they distinctly heard a voice: "Hustle up thar now, Manuel, an' turn out; it's your watch; wake up, damn yer maybe that'll bring yer ter life." The remedy applied to the sleeper must have been efficacious, as, an instant later, another figure slouched into view, the new arrival rubbing his eyes with one hand, the other clutching a short-barrelled gun.

At length, without a word, he slowly raised his short-barrelled rifle and fired. One of the horses hitched to the beam above the door stumbled forward and sank across the opening, blocking it. The bullet had caught it at the butt of the ear, and it fell stone dead, its neck bent up by the shortened rein.

He was waiting for this result when he heard a rifle-shot far away in the haze beneath him; and he knew that it was Joseph probably making one of those marvellous long shots of his which roused a sudden sigh of envy in the heart of this mighty hunter whenever he witnessed them. Oscard immediately went to his tent and came out with his short-barrelled, evil-looking rifle on his arm.

It was short-barrelled, but heavy in the breech, with an appearance of indubitable efficiency about it. It looked like an honest weapon to David, who was unaccustomed to firearms and this was more than he could say for the heavy, 38-calibre automatic pistol which Father Roland thrust into his hand, and which looked and felt murderously mysterious.

A strip of rag carpet covered a portion of the floor, and there was a sort of cupboard in one corner, the door of which stood open, revealing a variety of parcels, littering the shelves. Against the wall in a corner leaned a short-barrelled gun, a canvas bag draped over its muzzle. She had no opportunity to observe more.

"Back to camp, Garry. Corporal Peters, take the same post, with two men. There may be more of them." "All right, captain." There was a little more talking done, but these seemed to be a somewhat quiet set of men. There were six of them besides the captain. They were all dressed in blue, and wore brass buttons and carried short-barrelled carbines and sabres.

He pushed her aside and made for the door. "The key?" he said quickly. With trembling fingers she extracted it from her pocket. "One moment." He disappeared into his own flat and presently came out holding an electric torch. He snapped back the lock, put the key in his pocket and then, to her amazement, he slipped a short-barrelled revolver from his hip-pocket.

"Don't crowd in on us with them shovels and things," he advised grimly. "There's lots of room right where you are." The rush stopped abruptly. An ugly, short-barrelled gun in the hand of a man who bore all the earmarks of a hip shot was not to be treated lightly.