"Will I?" asked the marshal. All at once his eyes went yellow with hate. "I go back to the desert--I go to Martindale--people I pass on the street whisper as I go by. They'll tell over and over how I went down. And a kid did it--a raw kid!" He closed his eyes in silent agony. Then he looked up more keenly than before. "How'll they know that it was luck--that my gun stuck in the holster--and that you jumped me on the draw?" "You lie," said Andrew calmly. "Your gun came out clean as a whistle, and I waited for you, Dozier. You know I did." The pain in the marshal's face became a ghastly thing to see. At last he could speak. "A sneak always lies well," he replied, as he sneered at Lanning. He went on, while Andrew sat shivering with passion. "And any fool can get in a lucky shot now and then. But, when I'm out of this, I'll hunt you down again and I'll plant you full of lead, my son! You can lay to that!" The hard breathing of Andrew gradually subsided. "It won't work, Dozier," he said quietly. "You can't make me mad enough to shoot a man who's down. You can't make me murder you." The marshal closed his eyes again, while his breathing was beginning to grow fainter, and there was an unpleasant rattle in the hollow of his throat. Andrew went into the next room. "Scottie," he said, "will you let me have your flask?" Scottie smiled at him. "Not for what you'd use it for, Lanning," he said. Andrew picked up a cup and shoved it across the table. "Pour a little whisky in that, please," he said. Scottie looked up and studied him. Then he tipped his flask and poured a thin stream into the cup until it was half full. Andrew went back toward the door, the cup in his left hand. He backed up, keeping his face steadily toward the four, and kicked open the door behind him. War, he knew, had been declared. Then he raised the marshal's head and gave him a sip of the fiery stuff. It cleared the face of the wounded man. Then Andrew rolled down his blankets before the door, braced a small stick against it, so that the sound would be sure to waken him if anyone tried to enter, and laid down for the night. He was almost asleep when the marshal said: "Are you really going to stick it out, Andy?" "Yes." "In spite of what I've said?" "I suppose you meant it all? You'd hunt me down and kill me like a dog after you get back on your feet?" "Like a dog." "If you think it over and see things clearly," replied Andrew, "you'll see that what I've done I've done for my own sake, and not for yours." "How do you make that out--with four men in the next room ready to stick a knife in your back--if I know anything about 'em?" "I'll tell you: I owe nothing to you, but a man owes a lot to himself, and I'm going to pay myself in full." CHAPTER 39