While I was wondering what would come next, Borden stepped out into the open. He walked toward the door, calm and steady, and without particular haste, his revolver in its holster. It all happened so quickly it took me by surprise; the Dempsters, man and boy, must have been struck by it, for not a shot was fired. But to advance that way, to clasp hands with death! Maybe you've heard soldiers tell about charging in the face of cannon, how they felt--I know I felt worse just to see him go straight toward the house. I got dizzy, dizzy sick. Then it had all fallen so still, the little wind in the trees and the leaves stirring over the ground. I looked at the other men, thinking they could somehow change it; the grizzled old chap was chewing his tobacco as fast as he could, and the man with the bloody fingers had finished tying them up in his handkerchief. First thing I knew I was half out from behind my tree, watching him. "Keep back, Dick Borden," warned the man in the house--I swear his voice shook as he said it--"keep back, or, by God, I'll shoot!" "I'm coming into that door, Jack Dempster," was Borden's reply. He never flinched, never stopped. Then the rifle sounded, and, like an echo, the boy's revolver echoed it. Borden was hit--how could they fail at that distance and such a mark? But he managed to win the log where young Dempster lay. He stood there an instant, then slowly sat down upon it. A second time the young fellow lifted his weapon, and every man of us could see the Marshal looking into the muzzle. Orders or no orders, that was too much for even the deputies; the click of their rifle hammers ran along the trees. Borden heard it. "Don't shoot, men!" His voice was not loud, but harsh, and keyed high, as if his throat was dry. I think the next sound was a groan from the boy, and his revolver wavered and slipped in his fingers. "It's the gun you gave me," he said, "an' I can't kill you with it." Borden turned his head painfully from side to side, saw a stick, bent down laboriously, got it at last, and by its aid raised himself to his feet. That seemed to exhaust him. He stood for a moment, inert and useless, like an old man. Then he began to hoist himself forward step by step to the door. Iron will, just iron, it was. And it was terrible to see him--one shoulder and arm swinging low and limp, his knees lifting high as if knotted with stiffness, his head protruding in intense effort. The distance was short, but long, long for him. "Keep back! keep back!" cried Dempster. He himself was half out of the door, gripping his gun with one hand, warding the relentless Marshal off with the other. Borden answered nothing, another step. "You've got to stop!" begged Dempster. "Don't make me kill you, an' I can't let you in. Go back, go back! We fought together, we marched together, we ate and slept together, Dick--for God's sake, don't come nearer!"