THE SUPERB MOMENT
teeth, and before the other could realize what he was about, he had thrown his gun up to his shoulder. Carron was quick enough. He knocked up the muzzle, and the bullet sang harmless into the sky.
"What do you mean? Are you crazy?"
"I won't kill him!" Ferrier cried. "I only want to get him in the arm or leg to stop him! He'll get away! He'll get away!"
"Drop it or you'll get a slug in your own body," the horse-breaker said sternly. He took the gun, threw off the cock and glanced up at the side of the Sphinx. The boy had disappeared.
Ferrier sat down and howled.
Carron looked at him and felt far more like laughing. What ailed the fool? There was nothing the boy could report but that he had seen a horse in a corral. And how could he report it at all? With what could he communicate? What gesture, what intelligible sound? Now that the bewilderment of the unexpected was past, the appearance of George Ferrier ceased to be alarming. It seemed to Carron one of those accidents, dramatic and arresting in aspect, which in fact are no more portentous than a dream. It had gone like a dream. All that remained to him of it was a faint shiver of the flesh. He touched Ferrier rather compassionately.
"You are used up," he said. "You'd better get
353
