Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/112

finger and knocked the six-shooter out of his hand; and he, too, jumped out of sight. Fighting like a tiger at bay, Roberts, in less time than it takes to tell it, had the field to himself and not a foe in sight; every man in the crowd had disappeared around the corner.

"In this lull in the battle, he backed into the shelter of the door. Just then Billy the Kid, late in getting into action, came into view between the house and a road wagon standing near. He fired twice, but Roberts being inside the door, the Kid could not get a bead on him. From where I stood back along the wall, I yelled to the Kid to get back and motioned to him with my hand, and he ducked out of sight just as Roberts fired a shot that, I'll bet, didn't miss the Kid by an inch.

"Roberts was sick from his wound; I could hear him groaning. But his fighting spirit was as brave as ever. He slammed and locked the side door and went through the house into the front room and, firing again through the front door, sent his enemies rushing around the house out of range. He had churned all the shots out of his Winchester by this time; so he threw the gun aside and got a heavy Sharp's rifle—an old buffalo gun—which he found standing in a corner. Then he pulled a mattress off the bed and, dragging it across the floor under the open front window, lay down on it and prepared to keep up the fight. Nobody was ever able to figure out how, shot through and through as he was, he managed to do all this; his vitality was as marvellous as his nerve.

"Brewer and the rest of us now held a council of war. Billy the Kid wanted to rush the front door. Some of the others agreed to this. But I told them Roberts couldn't live three hours, was as good as dead already, and there wasn't any sense in any more of us getting shot up or