You are so confused, aren’t you??  “I’d better help him out?”  What?  Help him see the error of his ways, get him to turn away from his life of crime?  Pursue a life on the grid??  I guess Mr. Ponytail has high-tailed it out of the swamp and has left his gun behind.  Does Mark use the gun on the Gator?  Of course not, he grabs a big stick to “Scare the Gator Away…”  Forgive me, but I doubt highly whether that Gator is going to respond to that in the way Mark anticipates…  But nevertheless, with the magnum wedged smartly in the back of Mark’s waistband, he grabs the stick and takes a whack…  But what’s this?  More left-handed-ness…  With Mark’s right hand at the bottom of the stick, this is the posture that would be assumed by one hitting from the first base side…

So with the Gator’s work done and now dispatched, Mark will go waive his gun in Mitchum’s face and save the day?  Seems like we are still at something of a stalemate here…  it’s a battle of wits between two guys who are unfamiliar with how evil really works (witness the cluster that is unfolding on the boat vs. the undying virtues of one Mark Trail)  But we all know how this is going to turn out… or do we?  Death has visited the Trailverse from time to time…