w you may load."

When Williams had finished loading, Dic said: "I will drop my hat here.
We will walk from each other, you going west, I going east. The sun is
in the south. When we have each taken one hundred steps, we will call
'Ready,' turn, and fire when we choose."

Accordingly, Dic dropped his hat, and the two men started, one toward
the east, one toward the west, while the sun was shining in the south.
Williams quickly ran his hundred steps.

Dic had counted forty steps when he heard the cry "Dic" coming from the
forest ten yards to the south, and simultaneously the sharp crack of a
rifle behind him. At the same instant his left leg gave way under him
and he fell to the ground, supposing he had stepped into a muskrat hole.
After he had fallen he turned quickly toward Williams and saw that
gentleman hastily reloading his gun. Then he fully realized that his
antagonist had shot him, though he was unable to account for the voice
he had heard from the forest. That mystery, too, was quickly explained
when he heard Billy's dearly loved voice calling to Williams:--

"Drop that gun, or you die within a second."

Turning to the left Dic saw his friend holding the rifle which had
fallen from his own hands when he went down, and the little fellow
looked the picture of determined ferocity. Williams dropped his gun. Dic
was sitting upright where he had fallen, and Billy, handing him the
weapon, said:--

"Kill him, Dic; kill him as you would a wolf. I'm afraid if I shoot I'll
miss him, and then he will reload and kill you."

Williams was a hundred and forty yards away, but Dic could easily have
pierced his heart. He took the gun and lifted it to his shoulder.
Williams stood motionless as a tree upon a calm day. Dic lowered his
gun, but after a pause lifted it again and covered Williams's heart. He
held the gun to his shoulder for a second or two, then he threw it to
the ground, saying:--

"I can't kill him. Tell him to go, Billy Little. Tell him to go before I
kill him."

[Illustration: "'KILL HIM, DIC; KILL HIM AS YOU WOULD A WOLF.'"]

Williams took up his gun from the ground and started to leave, when Dic
said to Billy Little:--

"Tell him to leave his bullets."

Williams dropped the bullet pouch without a command from Billy, and
again started to leave. Dic tried to rise to his feet, but failed.

"I guess I'm wounded," he said hoarsely. "My God, Billy Little, look at
the blood I've lost! I--I feel weak--and-