The two men, in the deadly, driving snow, eyed each other. Out of the old man's deep-set eyes burned the resistance of a hundred storms faced before. But he was caught now like a wolf in a trap, and he knew he had little to hope for, little to fear. As de Spain regarded him, something like pity may have mixed with his hatred. The old outlaw was thinly clad. His open throat was beaten with snow and, standing beside the wagon, he held the team reins in a bare hand. De Spain cut the other coat from his saddle and held it out. Duke pretended not to see and, when not longer equal to keeping up the pretense, shook his head. "Take it," said de Spain curtly. "No." "Take it, I say. You and I will settle our affairs when we get Nan out of this," he insisted. "De Spain!" Duke's voice, as was its wont, cracked like a pistol, "I can say all I've got to say to you right here." "No." "Yes," cried the old man. "Listen, Henry," pleaded Nan, seeking shelter from the furious blast within his arm, "just for a moment, listen!" "Not now, I tell you!" cried de Spain. "He was coming, Henry, all the way--and he is sick--just to say it to you. Let him say it here, now." "Go on!" cried de Spain roughly. "Say it." "I'm not afraid of you, de Spain!" shouted the old man, his neck bared to the flying ice. "Don't think it! You're a better man than I am, better than I ever was--don't think I don't know that. But I'm not afraid of e'er a man I faced, de Spain; they'll tell you that when I'm dead. All the trouble that ever come 'tween you and me come by an accident--come before you was born, and come through Dave Sassoon, and he's held it over me ever since you come up into this country. I was a young fellow. Sassoon worked for my father. The cattle and sheep war was on, north of Medicine Bend. The Peace River sheepmen raided our place--your father was with them. He never did us no harm, but my brother, Bay Morgan, was shot in that raid by a man name of Jennings. My brother was fifteen years old, de Spain. I started out to get the man that shot him. Sassoon trailed him to the Bar M, the old de Spain ranch, working for your father."