d not be trifled with. His chin was shoved forward
slightly; somehow it helped to express the cold humor that shone in his
narrowed, steady eyes. His voice, when he spoke to Corrigan, had a
metallic quality that rang ominously in the silence that had continued:

"Back up your play or take it back," he said slowly.

Corrigan had not changed his position. He stared fixedly at the rider; his
only sign of emotion over the latter's words was a quickening of the eyes.
He idly tapped with his fingers on the sleeve of his khaki shirt, where
the arm passed under them to fold over the other. His voice easily matched
the rider's in its quality of quietness:

"My conversation was private. You are interfering without cause."

Watching the rider, filled with a sudden, breathless premonition of
impending tragedy, Rosalind saw his eyes glitter with the imminence of
physical action. Distressed, stirred by an impulse to avert what
threatened, she took a step forward, speaking rapidly to Corrigan:

"Mr. Corrigan, this is positively silly! You know you were hardly
discreet!"

Corrigan smiled coldly, and the girl knew that it was not a question of
right or wrong between the two men, but a conflict of spirit. She did not
know that hatred had been born here; that instinctively each knew the
other for a foe, and that this present clash was to be merely one battle
of the war that would be waged between them if both survived.

Not for an instant did Corrigan's eyes wander from those of the rider. He
saw from them that he might expect no further words. None came. The
rider's right hand fell to the butt of the pistol that swung low on his
right hip. Simultaneously, Corrigan's hand dropped to his hip pocket.

Rosalind saw the black horse lunge forward as though propelled by a sudden
spring. A dust cloud rose from his hoofs, and Corrigan was lost in it.
When the dust swirled away, Corrigan was disclosed to the girl's view,
doubled queerly on the ground, face down. The black horse had struck him
with its shoulder--he seemed to be badly hurt.

For a moment the girl stood, swaying, looking around appealingly, startled
wonder, dismay and horror in her eyes. It had happened so quickly that she
was stunned. She had but one conscious emotion--thankfulness that neither
man had used his pistol.

No one moved. The girl thought some of them might have come to Corrigan's
assistance. She did not know that the ethics forbade interference, that a
fight w