nsulted an
officer, and you shall meet me at once, to-morrow."

"If I meet you to-morrow," Clay replied, "I will thrash you for your
impertinence. The only reason I don't do it now is because you are on
my doorstep. You had better not meet me tomorrow, or at any other
time. And I have no leisure to fight duels with anybody."

"You are a coward," returned the other, quietly, "and I tell you so
before my servant."

Clay gave a short laugh and turned to MacWilliams in the doorway.

"Hand me my gun, MacWilliams," he said, "it's on the shelf to the
right."

MacWilliams stood still and shook his head. "Oh, let him alone," he
said. "You've got him where you want him."

"Give me the gun, I tell you," repeated Clay. "I'm not going to hurt
him, I'm only going to show him how I can shoot."

MacWilliams moved grudgingly across the porch and brought back the
revolver and handed it to Clay. "Look out now," he said, "it's loaded."

At Clay's words the General had retreated hastily to his horse's head
and had begun unbuckling the strap of his holster, and the orderly
reached back into the boot for his carbine. Clay told him in Spanish
to throw up his hands, and the man, with a frightened look at his
officer, did as the revolver suggested. Then Clay motioned with his
empty hand for the other to desist. "Don't do that," he said, "I'm not
going to hurt you; I'm only going to frighten you a little."

He turned and looked at the student lamp inside, where it stood on the
table in full view. Then he raised his revolver. He did not
apparently hold it away from him by the butt, as other men do, but let
it lie in the palm of his hand, into which it seemed to fit like the
hand of a friend. His first shot broke the top of the glass chimney,
the second shattered the green globe around it, the third put out the
light, and the next drove the lamp crashing to the floor. There was a
wild yell of terror from the back of the house, and the noise of a
guitar falling down a flight of steps. "I have probably killed a very
good cook," said Clay, "as I should as certainly kill you, if I were to
meet you. Langham," he continued, "go tell that cook to come back."

The General sprang into his saddle, and the altitude it gave him seemed
to bring back some of the jauntiness he had lost.

"That was very pretty," he said; "you have been a cowboy, so they tell
me. It is quite evident by your manners. No matter, if we do not meet
to-morrow