At that very instant there were six hired…

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hal, Martin Gallegos, to whisper a warning. Gallegos is hardly more than a boy — a common, illiterate Mexican youth, at whose awkwardness and ignorance most of us would turn up our noses. But that he had in him the stuff of men he showed by the most gallant act I ever saw. At that very instant there were six hired murderers crouching at the open window; and while Provencher was yet speaking one of them thrust in his old Springfield and fired. The great half-inch ball struck Provencher in the aorta, and from that chief life fountain the blood leapt out in a tall, broad arch. The stricken man gave one low cry and fell dead against Gallegos, whose face and body were drowned in the spurting deluge. The click of another rifle came from the window. There were still six living targets in that lighted room for the marksmen so secure in the darkness without. To shoot at the assassins were vain —