“To hell with you!” burst out Lawson, incoherently. He was frenzied. “I'll have her, or nobody else will!” “You never will,” returned Longstreth, stridently. “So help me God I'd rather see her the ranger's wife than yours!” While Lawson absorbed that shock Longstreth leaned toward him, all of hate and menace in his mien. “Lawson, you made me what I am,” continued Longstreth. “I backed you--shielded you. YOU'RE Cheseldine--if the truth is told! Now it's ended. I quit you. I'm done!” Their gray passion-corded faces were still as stones. “GENTLEMEN!” Duane called in far-reaching voice as he stepped out. “YOU'RE BOTH DONE!” They wheeled to confront Duane. “Don't move! Not a muscle! Not a finger!” he warned. Longstreth read what Lawson had not the mind to read. His face turned from gray to ashen. “What d'ye mean?” yelled Lawson, fiercely, shrilly. It was not in him to obey a command, to see impending death. All quivering and strung, yet with perfect control, Duane raised his left hand to turn back a lapel of his open vest. The silver star flashed brightly. Lawson howled like a dog. With barbarous and insane fury, with sheer impotent folly, he swept a clawing hand for his gun. Duane's shot broke his action. Before Lawson ever tottered, before he loosed the gun, Longstreth leaped behind him, clasped him with left arm, quick as lightning jerked the gun from both clutching fingers and sheath. Longstreth protected himself with the body of the dead man. Duane saw red flashes, puffs of smoke; he heard quick reports. Something stung his left arm. Then a blow like wind, light of sound yet shocking in impact, struck him, staggered him. The hot rend of lead followed the blow. Duane's heart seemed to explode, yet his mind kept extraordinarily clear and rapid. Duane heard Longstreth work the action of Lawson's gun. He heard the hammer click, fall upon empty shells. Longstreth had used up all the loads in Lawson's gun. He cursed as a man cursed at defeat. Duane waited, cool and sure now. Longstreth tried to lift the dead man, to edge him closer toward the table where his own gun lay. But, considering the peril of exposing himself, he found the task beyond him. He bent peering at Duane under Lawson's arm, which flopped out from his side. Longstreth's eyes were the eyes of a man who meant to kill. There was never any mistaking the strange and terrible light of eyes like those. More than once Duane had a chance to aim at them, at the top of Longstreth's head, at a strip of his side. Longstreth flung Lawson's body off. But even as it dropped, before Longstreth could leap, as he surely intended, for the gun, Duane covered him, called piercingly to him: “Don't jump for the gun! Don't! I'll kill you! Sure as God I'll kill you!”