He was positive
that he had caught the outline of a human head and shoulders in
the foliage. His finger pressed gently against the trigger of his
Winchester. Before he breathed again he would have fired. But a
shot from the foliage beat him out by the fraction of a second. In
that precious time lost, his enemy's bullet entered the edge of
his kit--and came through. He felt the shock of it, and in the
infinitesimal space between the physical impact and the mental
effect of shock his brain told him the horrible thing had
happened. It was his head--his face. It was as if he had plunged
them suddenly into hot water, and what was left of his skull was
filled with the rushing and roaring of a flood. He staggered up,
clutching his face with both hands. The world about him was
twisted and black, a dizzily revolving thing--yet his still
fighting mental vision pictured clearly for him a monstrous,
bulging-eyed sandpiper as big as a house. Then he toppled back on
the white sand, his arms flung out limply, his face turned to the
ambush wherein his murderer lay.
His body was clear of the rock and the pack, but there came no
other shot from the thick clump of balsam.
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