ready for't, 's soon's ye like. Coward indeed!"

"I repeat it--your act is cowardly."

"What act?"

"Your unprovoked attack upon me--especially since it gives you the first
shot. What if I were to shoot you down now? With the pistol you see in
my holster here, I could send six bullets through your body, before you
could bring your rifle to your shoulder. What would you call that?
Sheer cowardice, would it not be; and murder too?"

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

A DUEL WITHOUT SECONDS.

While I was speaking, I saw a change pass over the countenance of my
gigantic antagonist--as if some new resolve was forming in his mind,
that affected the programme he had already traced out. Was it possible
I had touched him on a point of honour? It was this purpose I desired
to effect; and, though hopeless it might appear, I continued the only
kind of appeal that, with such a spirit, seemed to promise any chance of
success.

"You _dare_ not play fair in this game?" I said, banteringly. "You
_are_ a coward; and would murder me. You want the first shot: you know
you do?"

"It's a lie!" cried the colossus, raising himself to his full height,
and assuming an air of chivalric grandeur I could not have deemed him
capable of--"it's a lie! I don't wish to murder ye; an' I don't want
the the first shot neyther."

"How?"

"I hain't so little confidence in my shootin' as to care for you an' yur
jim-crack gun! Nor is Hick Holt in such consate wi' his life eyther,
that he's afeerd to risk it. Tho' ye air a stuck-up critter, I won't
gi' ye the opportunity to 'kuse me o' foul play. Thur's grit in ye, I
reck'n; and seein' that's made me change my mind."

"What!" I exclaimed, taken by surprise at the speech, and fancying it
promised an end to our altercation--"you have changed your mind? you
mean to act justly then?"

"I mean, it shall be a _fair stan'-up fight_ atween us."

"Oh! a duel?"

"Duel, or whatever else ye may call it, mister."

"I agree to that. But how about seconds?"

"D'ye think two men can't fight fair 'ithout seconds? Ye see yander
stump standin' nigh the bars?"

"Yes--I see it."

"Wal, mister, thur you'll take yur stand--ahine or afront o' it,
whichsomever ye like best. Hyur's this other un, clost by the crib--
thur'll be my place. Thur's twenty yurds atween 'em, I reck'n. Is that
yur distance?"

"It will do as well as any other," I replied mechanically--still under
the influence of surprise, n