The rude preliminaries were soon settled. The parties armed with rifles were to fire at the word from a distance of eighty yards, and then approach each other, continuing the fight with revolvers until one or the other fell. The selection of seconds was effected by the elder Harrison acting for McKinstry, and after a moment's delay by the volunteering of the long, lank figure previously noted to act for the master. Preoccupied by other thoughts, Mr. Ford paid little heed to his self-elected supporter, who to the others seemed to be only taking that method of showing his contempt for McKinstry's recent insult. The master received the rifle mechanically from his hand and walked to position. He noticed, however, and remembered afterwards that his second was half hidden by the trunk of a large pine to his right that marked the limit of the ground.
In that supreme moment it must be recorded, albeit against all preconceived theory, that he did NOT review his past life, was NOT illuminated by a flash of remorseful or sentimental memory, and did NOT commend his soul to his Maker, but that he was simply and keenly alive to the very actual present in which he still existed and to his one idea of not firing at his adversary. And if anything could render his conduct more theoretically incorrect it was a certain exalted sense that he was doing quite right and was not only NOT a bad sort of fellow, but one whom his survivors might possibly regret!
"Are you ready, gentlemen? One--two--three--fi . . . !"
The explosions were singularly simultaneous--so remarkable in fact that it seemed to the master that his rifle, fired in the air, had given a DOUBLE report. A light wreath of smoke lay between him and his opponent. He was unhurt--so evidently was his adversary, for the voice rose again.
"Advance! . . . Hallo there! Stop!"
He looked up quickly to see McKinstry stagger and then fall heavily to the ground.
With an exclamation of horror, the first and only terrible emotion he had felt, he ran to the fallen man, as Harrison reached his side at the same moment.
"For God's sake," he said wildly, throwing himself on his knees beside McKinstry, "what has happened? For I swear to you, I never aimed at you! I fired in the air. Speak! Tell him, you," he turned with a despairing appeal to Harrison, "you must have seen it all--tell him it was not me!"
A half wondering, half incredulous smile passed quickly over Harrison's face. "In course you didn't MEAN it," he said dryly, "but let that slide. Get up and get away from yer, while you kin," he added impatiently, with a significant glance at one or two men who lingered after the sudden and general dispersion of the crowd at McKinstry's fall. "Get--will ye!"
"Never!" said the young man passionately, "until he knows that it was not my hand that fired that shot."
McKinstry painfully struggled to his elbow. "It took me yere," he said with a slow deliberation, as if answering some previous question, and pointing to his hip, "and it kinder let me down when I started forward at the second call."
"But it was not I who did it, McKinstry, I swear it. Hear me! For God's sake, say you believe me."
McKinstry turned his drowsy troubled eyes upon the master as if he were vaguely recalling something. "Stand back thar a minit, will ye," he said to Harrison, with a languid wave of his crippled hand;
"I want ter speak to this yer man."
Harrison drew back a few paces and the master sought to take the wounded man's hand, but he was stopped by a gesture. "Where hev you put Cressy?" McKinstry said slowly.
"I don't understand you," stammered Ford.
"Where are you hidin' her from me?" repeated McKinstry with painful distinctness. "Whar hev you run her to, that you're reckonin' to jine her arter--arter--THIS?"
"I am not hiding her! I am not going to her! I do not know where she is. I have not seen her since we parted early this morning without a word of meeting again," said the master rapidly, yet with a bewildered astonishment that was obvious even to the dulled faculties of his hearer.
"That war true?" asked McKinstry, laying his hand upon the master's shoulder and bringing his dull eyes to the level of the young man's.
"It is the whole truth," said Ford fervently, "and true also that I never raised my hand against you."
McKinstry beckoned to Harrison and the two others who had joined him, and then sank partly back with his hand upon his side, where the slow empurpling of his red shirt showed the slight ooze of a deeply-seated wound.
"You fellers kin take me over to the ranch," he said calmly, "and let him," pointing to Ford, "ride your best hoss fer the doctor. I don't," he continued in grave explanation, "gin'rally use a doctor, but this yer is suthin' outside the old woman's regular gait." He paused, and then drawing the master's head down towards him, he added in his ear, "When I get to hev a look at the size and shape o' this yer ball that's in my hip, I'll--I'll--I'll--be--a--little more kam!" A gleam of dull significance struggled into his eye.
The master evidently understood him, for he rose quickly, ran to the horse, mounted him and dashed off for medical assistance, while McKinstry, closing his heavy lids, anticipated this looked-for calm by fainting gently away.
