o the opposite
side of the stove and rubbed and warmed his hands. For some reason he
found it difficult to look at DeBar, and he knew that DeBar was not
looking at him.

It was the outlaw who broke the suspense.

"I've been outside," he said in a low voice. "There's an open in front
of the cabin, just a hundred paces across. It wouldn't be a bad idea
for us to stand at opposite sides of the open and at a given signal
approach, firing as we want to."

"Couldn't be better," exclaimed Philip briskly, turning to pull his
revolver from its holster.

DeBar watched him with tensely anxious eyes as he broke the breech,
looked at the shining circle of cartridges, and closed it again.

Without a word he went to the door, opened it, and with his pistol arm
trailing at his side, strode off to the right. For a moment Philip stood
looking after him, a queer lump in his throat. He would have liked to
shake hands, and yet at the same time he was glad that DeBar had gone in
this way. He turned to the left--and saw at a glance that the outlaw
had given him the best light. DeBar was facing him when he reached his
ground.

"Are you ready?" he shouted.

"Ready!" cried Philip.

DeBar ran forward, shoulders hunched low, his pistol arm half extended,
and Philip advanced to meet him. At seventy paces, without stopping
in his half trot, the outlaw fired, and his bullet passed in a hissing
warning three feet over Philip's head. The latter had planned to hold
his fire until he was sure of hitting the outlaw in the arm or shoulder,
but a second shot from him, which seemed to Philip almost to nip him in
the face, stopped him short, and at fifty paces he returned the fire.

DeBar ducked low and Philip thought that he was hit.

Then with a fierce yell he darted forward, firing as he came.

Again, and still a third time Philip fired, and as DeBar advanced,
unhurt, after each shot, a cry of amazement rose to his lips. At forty
paces he could nip a four-inch bull's-eye three times out of five,
and here he missed a man! At thirty he held an unbeaten record--and at
thirty, here in the broad open, he still missed his man!

He had felt the breath of DeBar's fourth shot, and now with one
cartridge each the men advanced foot by foot, until DeBar stopped
and deliberately aimed at twenty paces. Their pistols rang out in one
report, and, standing unhurt, a feeling of horror swept over Philip as
he looked at the other. The outlaw's arms fell to his