The contestants in this desert town drama were two hundred feet apart, facing each other, both horses moving slowly. They had both played a square game. There was no advantage now. Two hundred feet is a long shot. Both men had drawn their guns. Bud’s horse was dancing a little, and he spurred it viciously. Pete waited. Ben’s hands were gripping the wall beside him. He had seen gun fights before, but they had all been unpremeditated affairs. This one was too much like an execution. The groups of cowboys were as immobile as dummy figures. Even the horses at the hitch racks had ceased moving. Bud and Pete were closing the gap between them, closing it slowly, each waiting for the other to make the first move with a gun. They were only a hundred feet apart now. It was close enough. But neither of them made a move to lift his gun. Ninety feet; thirty yards. Either of them could hit a tomato can at that distance. Eighty feet! Horses walking slowly, Seventy feet; sixty feet. Twenty yards now. They were almost in front of the sheriff’s office. Ben laughed foolishly. It would be a double funeral. He had seen Bud shoot the head from a prairie dog at that distance. “It’s a nice evenin’ for it,” said the sheriff rather inanely. And then it happened! * * * * * Both guns came up at exactly the same instant. Ben’s eyes snapped shut and he turned his head aside. Came a tiny ping, hardly louder than the mere snapping of a revolver hammer. Another and another. Bud’s eyes jerked open. The two riders were thirty feet apart, leaning forward in their saddles. Not a shot had been fired. With a swift movement, Bud Hickman swung out the cylinder of his Colt and emptied the cartridges in his hand. Every primer had been dented. There were marks on the bullets, marks made by the jaws of a pair of pliers. Pete was swearing viciously, as he drew cartridges from his belt and started to stuff them in his gun. But the sheriff halted him with a sharp word. “Damn you, you pulled the powder on my shells!” snarled Pete. “Yeah; and I’ll pull somethin’ else out of you, if you make one more move,” said the sheriff calmly. “C’mere, Bud.” Bud rode up to him, still holding the empty gun in his hand. Pete had quit trying to load his gun. They looked coldly at each other. “You boys hadn’t ort to fight,” said the sheriff calmly. “Both of you goin’ off kinda half cocked, as you might say.” The men from both outfits had moved in close now, trying to understand what it was all about, their enmity all but forgotten in this queer turn of events. “I pulled them bullets,” admitted the sheriff. “I don’t reckon either of you showed any yaller streak. You played the game square, and I like you both for it. Personally I kinda enjoyed it. It was like lookin’ at a show. I was the only one that knowed how it would turn out.” “Was it any of your damn’ business how it turned out?” demanded Pete hotly.