There was a tableau set against the gray, lichen-bossed rocks. Two men glaring at each other. The new-comer was a tall, athletic, brown-faced mountaineer, bearing a gun and wearing two heavy revolvers. He towered above Dufour and gazed down upon him as if about to execute him. The latter did not quail, but grew angrier instead. "You ought to have better sense than to interfere with my sport in such a way! Who are you, anyway?" he cried in a hot, fierce tone. The mountaineer stood silent for a moment, as if collecting words enough for what he felt like saying, then: "See yer," he drawled, rather musically, "ef I take ye by the scruff o' yer neck an' the heel o' yer stockin' an' jest chuck ye inter thet puddle, ye'll begin to surmise who I air, ye saucy little duck-legged minny-catcher, you!" Dufour, remembering his long training years ago at the Gentlemen's Glove-Club, squared himself with fists in position, having flung aside his tackle. In his righteous rage he forgot that his adversary was not only his superior in stature but also heavily armed. "Well, thet' ther' do beat me!" said the mountaineer, with an incredulous ring in his voice. "The very idee! W'y ye little aggervatin' banty rooster, a puttin' up yer props at me! W'y I'll jest eternally and everlastin'ly wring yer neck an' swob the face o' nature wi' ye!" What followed was about as indescribable as a whirlwind in dry grass. The two men appeared to coalesce for a single wild, whirling, resounding instant, and then the mountaineer went over headlong into the middle of the pool with a great plash and disappeared. Dufour, in a truly gladiatorial attitude, gazed fiercely at the large dimple in which his antagonist was buried for the instant, but out of which he presently projected himself with great promptness, then, as a new thought came to him, he seized the fallen gun of the mountaineer, cocked it and leveled it upon its owner. There was a peculiar meaning in his words as he stormed out: "Lie down! down with you, or I blow a hole clean through you instantly!" Promptly enough the mountaineer lay down until the water rippled around his chin and floated his flaxen beard. Some moments of peculiar silence followed, broken only by the lapsing gurgle and murmur of the brook. Dufour, with arms as steady as iron bars, kept the heavy gun bearing on the gasping face of the unwilling bather, whilst at the same time he was dangerously fingering the trigger. The stout, short figure really had a muscular and doughty air and the heavy face certainly looked warlike. "Stranger, a seein' 'at ye've got the drap onto me, 'spose we swear off an' make up friends?" The man in the water said this at length, in the tone of one presenting a suggestion of doubtful propriety. "Don't hardly think you've cooled off sufficiently, do you?" responded Dufour. "This here's spring warter, ye must 'member," offered the mountaineer. The gun was beginning to tire Dufour's arms.