s in your
hands. I'm as much your inferior in brute strength as--as mentally and
socially--you are--mine. I don't want to take any advantage of you--it
seems that we have to fight.--I'm waiting for you to draw."

He paused there, breathing heavily, and Boone stood unmoving, his hands
still at his sides.

"I'm not armed," he said, and now he had recovered a less strained
composure. "Why should I come with a gun on me when a gentleman of high
social standing invites me to his office?"

"You're quibbling," Morgan burst out with a fresh access of fury.
"You've given me the right to demand satisfaction. You've got a pistol
in your desk there, haven't you?"

"Maybe so. Why do you ask? Isn't one gun enough for you when your man's
unarmed?"

"Great God," shouted the Colonel's son, "are you trying to goad me into
insanity? _You_ are going to need one sorely in a moment. I give you
fair warning. I'm tired of waiting. Will you arm yourself?"

Boone shook his head.

"I told you when I came in here why I wouldn't fight you. I can't fight
your father's son. You know as damned well as you know you're living
that no other man on earth could say the things you've said and go
unpunished--and you know just that damned well, too, why I'm holding my
hand."

As he paused, both were breathing as heavily as though their battle had
been violently physical instead of only verbal, and it was Boone who
spoke next.

"Put away that gun," he ordered curtly. "Unless you're still bent on
doing murder."

He stepped forward until his chest came in contact with the muzzle, his
own hands still unlifted.

"Get back!" barked Morgan, who stood with his back against the desk. "If
you crowd me I _will_ shoot."

There was a swift panther-like sweep of Boone's right arm and Morgan
felt fingers closing about his wrist. Then reason left him and he
pressed the trigger.

But no report started echoes in the empty building. Morgan felt only the
bone-crushing pressure that made his wrist ache as it was forced up, and
then he saw that the hand which had closed vice-like on it had one
finger thrust between the hammer and firing pin of his weapon.

The reaction left him dizzy, as he reflected that he had done all that
man could do toward homicide and had been halted only by his unarmed
adversary's quicker thought and action. Boone uncocked the firearm and
laid it on the table, under the other's hand.

"I guess you see now," said Morgan in a low voice,