Byram began moving towards the house, shot-gun raised.
"Stop!" cried McCloud, jumping to his feet.
But Byram came on, gun levelled, and McCloud retreated to his front door.
"Give it to him!" shouted the game-warden; "shoot his windows out!" There was a flash from the road and a load of buckshot crashed through the window overhead.
Before the echoes of the report died away, McCloud's voice was heard again, calmly warning them back.
Something in his voice arrested the general advance.
"I don't know why I don't kill you in your tracks, Byram," said McCloud; "I've wanted the excuse often enough. But now I've got it and I don't want it, somehow. Let me alone, I tell you."
"He's no good!" said the warden, distinctly. Byram crept through the picket fence and lay close, hugging his shot-gun.
"I tell you I intend to pay my taxes," cried McCloud, desperately. "Don't force me to shoot!"
The sullen rage was rising; he strove to crush it back, to think of the little path-master.
"For God's sake, go back!" he pleaded, hoarsely.
Suddenly Byram started running towards the house, and McCloud clapped his rifle to his cheek and fired. Four flashes from the road answered his shot, but Byram was down in the grass screaming, and McCloud had vanished into his house.
Charge after charge of buckshot tore through the flimsy clapboards; the moonlight was brightened by pale flashes, and the timbered hills echoed the cracking shots.
After a while no more shots were fired, and presently a voice broke out in the stillness:
"Be yew layin' low, or be yew dead, Dan McCloud?"
"Or be yew playin' foxy possum," continued the voice, with nasal rising inflection.
Byram began to groan and crawl towards the road.
"Let him alone," he moaned; "let him alone. He's got grit, if he hain't got nothin' else."
"Air yew done for?" demanded Tansey, soberly.
"No, no," groaned Byram, "I'm jest winged. He done it, an' he was right. Didn't he say he'd pay his taxes? He's plumb right. Let him alone, or he'll come out an' murder us all!"
Byram's voice ceased; Tansey mounted the dark slope, peering among the brambles, treading carefully.
But it was ten minutes before he found the young man, quite dead, in the long grass.
With an oath Tansey flung up his gun and drove a charge of buckshot crashing through the front door. The door quivered; the last echoes of the shot died out; silence followed.