here I said to Union Mills--didn't I?--'Bet your life the
Old Man's not far off, even if he ain't in the cabin.' Why, the moment I
stepped foot--"

"And I said coming along," interrupted Union Mills, with equally
reviving mendacity, "Like as not he's hangin' round yer and lyin' low
just to give us a surprise.' He! ho!"

"He's gone for good, and he left that rifle here on purpose," said the
Left Bower in a low voice, taking the weapon almost tenderly in his
hands.

"Drop it, then!" said the Right Bower. The voice was that of his
brother, but suddenly changed with passion. The two other partners
instinctively drew back in alarm.

"I'll not leave it here for the first comer," said the Left Bower,
calmly, "because we've been fools and he too. It's too good a weapon for
that."

"Drop it, I say!" said the Right Bower, with a savage stride towards
him.

The younger brother brought the rifle to a half charge with a white face
but a steady eye.

"Stop where you are!" he said collectedly. "Don't row with ME, because
you haven't either the grit to stick to your ideas or the heart to
confess them wrong. We've followed your lead, and--here we are! The
camp's broken up--the Old Man's gone--and we're going. And as for the
d----d rifle--"

"Drop it, do you hear!" shouted the Right Bower, clinging to that one
idea with the blind pertinacity of rage and a losing cause. "Drop it!"

The Left Bower drew back, but his brother had seized the barrel
with both hands. There was a momentary struggle, a flash through the
half-lighted cabin, and a shattering report. The two men fell back from
each other; the rifle dropped on the floor between them.

The whole thing was over so quickly that the other two partners had not
had time to obey their common impulse to separate them, and consequently
even now could scarcely understand what had passed. It was over so
quickly that the two actors themselves walked back to their places,
scarcely realizing their own act.

A dead silence followed. The Judge and Union Mills looked at each other
in dazed astonishment, and then nervously set about their former habits,
apparently in that fatuous belief common to such natures, that they were
ignoring a painful situation. The Judge drew the barrel towards him,
picked up the cards, and began mechanically to "make a patience,"
on which Union Mills gazed with ostentatious interest, but with eyes
furtively conscious of the rigid figure of the Right Bower by