Gainor, who was very grave, indeed, and returned his look with one of infinite pity, as though he knew and understood and acquiesced, but was deeply grieved that it must be so.
“Gentlemen,” said Terry, making his voice light and cheerful as he felt that the voice of a Colby should be at such a time, being about to die, “I suppose you understand why I have asked you to come here?”
“Yes,” nodded Gainor.
“But I'm damned if I do,” said the sheriff frankly.
Terry looked upon him coldly. He felt that he had not the slightest chance of killing this professional manslayer, but at least he would do his best—for the sake of Black Jack's memory. But to think that his life—his mind—his soul—all that was dear to him and all that he was dear to, should ever lie at the command of the trigger of this hard, crafty, vain, and unimportant fellow! He writhed at the thought. It made him stand stiffer. His chin went up. He grew literally taller before their eyes, and such a look came on his face that the sheriff instinctively fell back a pace.
“Mr. Gainor,” said Terry, as though his contempt for the sheriff was too great to permit his speaking directly to Minter, “will you explain to the sheriff that my determination to have satisfaction does not come from the fact that he killed my father, but because of the manner of the killing? To the sheriff it seems justifiable. To me it seems a murder. Having that thought, there is only one thing to do. One of us must not leave this place!” Gainor bowed, but the sheriff gaped.
“By the eternal!” he scoffed. “This sounds like one of them duels of the old days. This was the way they used to talk!”
“Gentlemen,” said Gainor, raising his long-fingered hand, “it is my solemn duty to admonish you to make up your differences amicably.”
“Whatever that means,” sneered the sheriff. “But tell this young fool that's trying to act like he couldn't see me or hear me—tell him that I don't carry no grudge ag'in' him, that I'm sorry he's Black Jack's son, but that it's something he can live down, maybe. And I'll go so far as to say I'm sorry that I done all that talking right to his face. But farther than that I won't go. And if all this is leading up to a gunplay, by God, gents, the minute a gun comes into my hand I shoot to kill, mark you that, and don't you never forget it!”
Mr. Gainor had remained with his hand raised during this outbreak. Now he turned to Terry.
“You have heard?” he said. “I think the sheriff is going quite a way toward you, Mr. Colby.”
“Hollis!” gasped Terry. “Hollis is the name, sir!”
“I beg your pardon,” said Gainor. “Mr. Hollis it is! Gentlemen, I assure you that I feel for you both. It seems, however, to be one of those unfortunate affairs when the mind must stop its debate and physical action must take up its proper place. I lament the necessity, but I admit it, even though the law does not admit it. But there are unwritten laws, sirs, unwritten laws which I for one consider among the holies of holies.”
Palpably the old man was enjoying every minute of his own talk. It was not his first affair of this nature. He came out of an early and more courtly generation where men drank together in the evening by firelight and carved one another in the morning with glimmering bowie knives.
“You are both,” he protested, “dear to me. I esteem you both as men and as good citizens. And I have done my best to open the way for peaceful negotiations toward an understanding. It seems that I have failed. Very well, sirs. Then it must be battle. You are both armed? With revolvers?”
“Nacher'ly,” said the sheriff, and spat accurately at a blaze on the tree trunk beside him. He had grown very quiet.
“I am armed,” said Terry calmly, “with a revolver.”
“Very good.”
The hand of Gainor glided into his bosom and came forth bearing a white handkerchief. His right hand slid into his coat and came forth likewise— bearing a long revolver.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “the first man to disobey my directions I shall shoot down unquestioningly, like a dog. I give you my solemn word for it!”
And his eye informed them that he would enjoy the job.
He continued smoothly: “This contest shall accord with the only terms by which a duel with guns can be properly fought. You will stand back to back with your guns not displayed, but in your clothes. At my word you will start walking in the opposite directions until my command 'Turn!' and at this command you will wheel, draw your guns, and fire until one man falls—or both!”
He sent his revolver through a peculiar, twirling motion and shook back his long white hair.
“Ready, gentlemen, and God defend the right!”
CHAPTER 14
The talk was fitful in the living room. Elizabeth Cornish did her best to revive the happiness of her guests, but she herself was a prey to the same subdued excitement which showed in the faces of the others. A restraint had been taken away by the disappearance of both the storm centers of the dinner—the sheriff and Terry. Therefore it was possible to talk freely. And people talked. But not loudly. They were prone to gather in little familiar groups and discuss in a whisper how Terry had risen and spoken before them. Now and then someone, for the sake of politeness, strove to open a general theme of conversation, but it died away like a ripple on a placid pond.
“But what I can't understand,” said Elizabeth to Vance when she was able to maneuver him to her side later on, “is why they seem to expect something more.”
Vance was very grave and looked tired. The realization that all his cunning, all his work, had been for nothing, tormented him. He had set his trap and baited it, and it had worked perfectly—save that the teeth of the trap had closed over thin air. At the denouement of the sheriff's story there should have been the barking of two guns and a film of gunpowder smoke should have gone tangling to the ceiling. Instead there had been the formal little speech from Terry—and then quiet. Yet he had to mask and control his bitterness; he had to watch his tongue in talking with his sister.
“You see,” he said quietly, “they don't understand. They can't see how fine Terry is in having made no
