Oh! Going to leave me here for the buzzards, I s'pose?"
"What do you take me for?" Roger bent over his victim. "Turn over so
I can see where your hand is."
"Oh, oh! Straighten my leg out, for Gawd's sake." Roger bent to do
so, his eyes for the moment leaving the other's face. "Easy; easy,
now. There, you sucker; take that!"
As one might leap back from a reptile's fangs, so Roger leaped at the
burning sensation and the thud of a blow on his back. The cattleman,
too, came to his feet with a spring that betrayed his shaming
[Transcriber's note: shamming?]; and at sight of the glistening thing
in the man's hand Roger understood. It was a long-bladed clasp knife
with a button catch. While the man was groaning and pretending to feel
for his broken bones he had opened the knife in his pocket; and when
Roger had bent over the man had stabbed him in the back.
The man was grinning in bestial fashion, his teeth bared, his eyes
alight with devilish expectancy, waiting for his victim to fall. He
was gloating; he feasted his eyes upon Roger's fresh young face, his
bright eyes, and waited for the flesh to begin to fade and grow
greenish white; for the eyes to fill with a slow astonishment and to
grow dim as a light that is turned out, and for the great young body to
come crashing stupidly to the ground.
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