Moran breathed more freely at this sign, for he knew that he had been nearer death than ever before in all his adventurous life, and the sway of his passion had weakened his nervous control. Courage came back to him rapidly, for with all his faults he was, physically at least, no coward. He took hope from his belief that Wade would not now shoot him down. "Well, why don't you pull that trigger?" His tone was almost as cool as though he had asked a commonplace question. "I've heard," said Wade slowly, "that you call yourself a good rough-and-tumble fighter; that you've never met your match. I want to get my--hands--on you!" Moran's features relaxed into a grin; it seemed strange to him that any man could be such a fool. It was true that he had never met his match in rough fighting, and he did not expect to meet it now. "You're a bigger man than I am," the cattleman went on. "I'll take a chance on you being a better one. I believe that I can break you with my--hands--like the rotten thing you are." He paid no heed to Dorothy's tearful protests. "Will you meet me in a fair fight?" Wade's face suddenly contorted with fury. "If you won't...." His grip on the rifle tightened significantly. "No, Gordon, no! Oh, please, not that!" the girl pleaded. "Sure, I'll fight," Moran answered, a gleam of joy in his eyes. He gloried in the tremendous strength of a body which had brought him victory in half a hundred barroom combats. He felt that no one lived, outside the prize-ring, who could beat him on an even footing. "Take his gun away from him," Wade told Dorothy. "It's the second time you've disarmed him, but it'll be the last. He'll never carry a gun again. Take it!" he repeated, commandingly, and when she obeyed, added: "Toss it on the bed." He stood his rifle in a corner near the door. "You're a fool, Wade," Moran taunted as they came together. "I'm going to kill you first and then I'll take my will of her." But nothing he could say could add to Wade's fury, already at its coldest, most deadly point. He answered by a jab at the big man's mouth, which Moran cleverly ducked; for so heavy a man, he was wonderfully quick on his feet. He ducked and parried three other such vicious leads, when, by a clever feint, Wade drew an opening and succeeded in landing his right fist, hard as a bag of stones, full in the pit of his adversary's stomach. It was an awful blow, one that would have killed a smaller man; but Moran merely grunted and broke ground for an instant. Then he landed a swinging left on the side of Wade's head which opened a cut over his ear and nearly floored him.