Jim and Sir Ferdinand let drive straight at one another the same minute. They both meant it this time. Sir Ferdinand’s hat turned part round on his head, but poor old Jim drops forward on his face and tears up the grass with his hands. I knew what that sign meant.

Goring rides straight at Starlight and calls on him to surrender. He had his rifle on his hip, but he never moved. There he stood, with his hand on the mane of the old horse. “Keep back if you’re wise, Goring,” says he, as quiet and steady as if he’d been cattle-drafting. “I don’t want to have your blood on my head; but if you must-.”

Goring had taken so many men in his day that he was got over confident-like. He thought Starlight would give in at the last moment or miss him in the rush. My right arm was broken, and now that Jim was down we might both be took, which would be a great crow for the police. Anyhow, he was a man that didn’t know what fear was, and he chanced it.

Two of the other troopers fired point blank at Starlight as Goring rode at him, and both shots told. He never moved, but just lifted his rifle as the other came up at the gallop. Goring threw up his arms, and rolled off his horse a dying man.

Starlight looked at him for a minute.

“We’re quits,” he says; “it’s not once or twice either you’ve pulled trigger on me. I knew this day would come.”

Then he sinks down slowly by the side of the old horse and leans against his fore leg, Rainbow standing quite steady, only tossing his head up and down the old way. I could see, by the stain on Starlight’s mouth and the blood on his breast, he’d been shot through the lungs.

I was badly hit, too, and going in the head, though I didn’t feel it so much at the time. I began to hear voices like in a dream; then my eyes darkened, and I fell like a log.

When I came to, all the men was off their horses, some round Goring—him they lifted up and propped against a tree; but he was stone dead, anyone could see. Sir Ferdinand was on his knees beside Starlight, talking to him, and the other saying a word now and then, quite composed and quiet-like.

“Close thing, Morringer, wasn’t it?” I heard him say. “You were too quick for us; another day and we’d been out of reach.”

“True enough. Horses all dead beat; couldn’t raise a remount for love or money.”

“Well, the game’s up now, isn’t it? I’ve held some good cards, too, but they never told, somehow. I’m more sorry for Jim—and—that poor girl, Aileen, than I am for myself.”