Part 12 (2/2)
”Yes,” replied Philip. ”As for me, you'll find addresses in my pocket, too. Let's shake!”
Over the stove they gripped hands.
”My eyes hurt,” said DeBar. ”It's the snow and wind, I guess. Do you mind a little sleep--after we eat? I haven't slept a wink in three days and nights.”
”Sleep until you're ready,” urged Philip. ”I don't want to fight bad eyes.”
They ate, mostly in silence, and when the meal was done Philip carefully cleaned his revolver and oiled it with bear grease, which he found in a bottle on the shelf.
DeBar watched him as he wiped his weapon and saw that Philip lubricated each of the five cartridges which he put in the chamber.
Afterward they smoked.
Then DeBar stretched himself out in one of the two bunks, and his heavy breathing soon gave evidence that he was sleeping.
For a time Philip sat beside the stove, his eyes upon the inanimate form of the outlaw. Drowsiness overcame him then, and he rolled into the other bunk. He was awakened several hours later by DeBar, who was filling the stove with wood.
”How's the eyes?” he asked, sitting up.
”Good,” said the other. ”Glad you're awake. The light will be bad inside of an hour.”
He was rubbing and warming his hands, and Philip came to the opposite side of the stove and rubbed and warmed his hands. For some reason he found it difficult to look at DeBar, and he knew that DeBar was not looking at him.
It was the outlaw who broke the suspense.
”I've been outside,” he said in a low voice. ”There's an open in front of the cabin, just a hundred paces across. It wouldn't be a bad idea for us to stand at opposite sides of the open and at a given signal approach, firing as we want to.”
”Couldn't be better,” exclaimed Philip briskly, turning to pull his revolver from its holster.
DeBar watched him with tensely anxious eyes as he broke the breech, looked at the s.h.i.+ning circle of cartridges, and closed it again.
Without a word he went to the door, opened it, and with his pistol arm trailing at his side, strode off to the right. For a moment Philip stood looking after him, a queer lump in his throat. He would have liked to shake hands, and yet at the same time he was glad that DeBar had gone in this way. He turned to the left--and saw at a glance that the outlaw had given him the best light. DeBar was facing him when he reached his ground.
”Are you ready?” he shouted.
”Ready!” cried Philip.
DeBar ran forward, shoulders hunched low, his pistol arm half extended, and Philip advanced to meet him. At seventy paces, without stopping in his half trot, the outlaw fired, and his bullet pa.s.sed in a hissing warning three feet over Philip's head. The latter had planned to hold his fire until he was sure of hitting the outlaw in the arm or shoulder, but a second shot from him, which seemed to Philip almost to nip him in the face, stopped him short, and at fifty paces he returned the fire.
DeBar ducked low and Philip thought that he was. .h.i.t.
Then with a fierce yell he darted forward, firing as he came.
Again, and still a third time Philip fired, and as DeBar advanced, unhurt, after each shot, a cry of amazement rose to his lips. At forty paces he could nip a four-inch bull's-eye three times out of five, and here he missed a man! At thirty he held an unbeaten record--and at thirty, here in the broad open, he still missed his man!
He had felt the breath of DeBar's fourth shot, and now with one cartridge each the men advanced foot by foot, until DeBar stopped and deliberately aimed at twenty paces. Their pistols rang out in one report, and, standing unhurt, a feeling of horror swept over Philip as he looked at the other. The outlaw's arms fell to his side. His empty pistol dropped to the snow, and for a moment he stood rigid, with his face half turned to the gloomy sky, while a low cry of grief burst from Philip's lips.
In that momentary posture of DeBar he saw, not the effect of a wound only, but the grim, terrible rigidity of death. He dropped his own weapon and ran forward, and in that instant DeBar leaped to meet him with the fierceness of a beast!
<script>