"One more inch and you are a dead man!" he said, slowly. Mrs. Floyd, who was on the veranda, cried out and threw her arms round Harriet, who seemed ready to run between the two men. No one quite saw how it happened, but Westerfelt suddenly bent near the earth and sprang forward. Wambush's revolver went off over his head, and before he could cock it again, Westerfelt, with a swift sweep of his arm, had sent it spinning through a window-pane in the hotel. "Ah!" escaped somebody's lips in the silent crowd, and the two men, closely on the alert, faced each other. "Part 'em, men; what are you about?" cried Mrs. Floyd. "Yes, part 'em," laughed a man on the edge of the crowd; "somebody 'll get his beauty spiled; Toot kin claw like a pant'er; I don't know what t'other man kin do, but he looks game." "No, let 'em fight it out fa'r an' squar'," suggested red-faced Buck Hillhouse, the bar-keeper, in the autocratic tone he used in conducting cock-fights in his back yard. The blood had left Westerfelt's face. Wambush's eyes gleamed desperately; disarmed, he looked less a man than an infuriated beast. Westerfelt was waiting for him to make the attack, but, unlike his antagonist, was growing calmer every second. All at once Wambush sent his right arm towards Westerfelt's face so quickly that the spectators scarcely saw it leave his side, but it was not quicker than Westerfelt's left, which skilfully parried the thrust. Then, before Toot could shield himself, Westerfelt struck him with the force of a battering-ram squarely in the mouth. Wambush whined in pain, spat blood from gashed lips, and shook his head like a lion wounded in the mouth. He ran backward a few feet to recover himself, and then, with a mad cry, rushed at Westerfelt and caught him by the throat. Westerfelt tried to shake him off, but he was unsuccessful. He attempted to strike him in the face, but Wambush either dodged the thrusts or caught them in his thick hair. It seemed that Westerfelt's only chance now was to throw his assailant down, but his strength had left him, Wambush's claws had sunk into his neck like prongs of steel. He could not breathe. "Hit 'im in the bread-basket, John!" cried Luke Bradley. It was a happy suggestion. Westerfelt struck Wambush in the stomach. With a gasp and an oath, Wambush doubled up and released Westerfelt's throat. The two men now clinched breast to breast, and, with arms round each other's bodies, each began to try to throw the other down. They swung back and forth and from side to side, but they were well mated. Westerfelt suddenly threw his left leg behind Wambush's heels and began to force him backward. In an instant Wambush would have gone down, but seeing his danger he wriggled out of Westerfelt's grasp, drew something from his coat pocket, and sprang towards him. "Knife! knife! knife!" cried Luke Bradley in alarm. "Part 'em!"