"What's the meaning of this?" Jack demanded. "Would you become a murderer?" "He struck me," shouted Stanley angrily, "and he shall give me satisfaction, and so shall you, you meddling upstart." "So?" said Jack quietly. "What kind of satisfaction do you want? I'm perfectly ready to accommodate you." Stanley took one look at Jack's stalwart figure, fully his own height and equally as broad. Evidently he decided he cared nothing for a tussle with this opponent. "I have nothing to say to you," he said. "But this fellow," pointing to Frank, "struck me and I demand satisfaction." "Well," said Frank, interrupting. "You shall have it. Pull off your coat." "I'm not a common bruiser," sneered Stanley. "I will fight you with revolvers at twenty paces." "Enough of this," broke in Jack. "I will permit no duel." "I do not want to kill you," said Frank. "So!" exclaimed the enraged officer, "a coward, eh?" Frank stepped quickly forward, an angry gleam in his eye. "Enough," he said. "I'll fight you." Again Jack started to protest, but Frank waved him aside and turned to the men gathered about. "Can I depend upon you men not to let this go any further?" he asked. "You can, sir," they answered in chorus. "All right, then," said Frank. "Get ready, sir." One sailor volunteered to act as second for Stanley and Jack stepped to Frank's side. Then the two seconds met and decided the details of the duel. The principals were to be allowed one shot each. This was to be all, whether either man was hit or not. Before accepting the revolver from the hand of his second, Stanley quickly drew his own revolver, and taking aim at a little knob on a tree some fifty feet distant, fired quickly. The bullet splintered the bark on the tree and the pieces flew high in the air. "Half an inch away!" called a sailor who stood near the tree. Stanley turned to Frank with a sneering smile on his face. "Say your prayers," he taunted. "They will be your last." Frank smiled grimly. "I heard a story once," he replied quietly, "about a man who could hit a dime every shot at a hundred yards. But when he fired with a loaded pistol pointed at him he didn't come off with such a good record." The principals now stood back to back. Each was to take twenty paces forward--Jack had refused to make the distance any closer--turn and lire when ready. "Ready, go!" came Jack's voice, and slowly the two started away from each other. "Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen--" counted Frank, and at that instant there was a sound of a shot and a bullet whistled over his head, grazing the scalp. Stanley, nervous because of the lad's coolness, had fired at the count of nineteen. "Twenty!" said Frank without a sign of nervousness in his voice. He turned slowly, and aimed his revolver at the ground in front of him. Very slowly he raised the barrel of his weapon until it pointed at the knees of his now shaking antagonist, then to his belt, to his chest, and finally to his head.