y brother, who
had the call. I reckon et's all the same--or mebbe better. For I perpose
to take this yer gentleman off your hands."

He lifted his slumbrous eyes for the first time to the master, and at
the same time put himself between him and Harrison. "I perpose," he
continued, "to take him at his word; I perpose ter give him a chance to
answer with a gun. And ez I reckon, by all accounts, there's no man
yer ez hez a better right than ME, I perpose to be the man to put
that question to him in the same way. Et may not suit some gents,"
he continued slowly, facing an angry exclamation from the lank figure
behind him, "ez would prefer to hev eleven men to take up THEIR private
quo'lls, but even then I reckon that the man who is the most injured hez
the right to the first say and that man's ME."

With a careful deliberation that had a double significance to the
malcontents, he handed his own rifle to the master and without looking
at him continued: "I reckon, sir, you've seen that afore, but ef it
ain't quite to your hand, any of those gents, I kalkilate, will be
high-toned enuff to giv you the chyce o' theirs. And there's no need o'
trapsin' beyon' the township lines, to fix this yer affair; I perpose to
do it in ten minutes in the brush yonder."

Whatever might have been the feelings and intentions of the men around
him, the precedence of McKinstry's right to the duello was a principle
too deeply rooted in their traditions to deny; if any resistance to it
had been contemplated by some of them, the fact that the master was now
armed, and that Mr. McKinstry would quickly do battle at his side with a
revolver in defence of his rights, checked any expression. They
silently drew back as the master and McKinstry slowly passed out of the
school-house together, and then followed in their rear. In that interval
the master turned to McKinstry and said in a low voice: "I accept
your challenge and thank you for it. You have never done me a greater
kindness--whatever I have done to YOU--yet I want you to believe that
neither now nor THEN--I meant you any harm."

"Ef you mean by that, sir, that ye reckon ye won't return my fire, ye're
blind and wrong. For it will do you no good with them," he said with a
significant wave of his crippled hand towards the following crowd, "nor
me neither."

Firmly resolved, however, that he would not fire at McKinstry, and
clinging blindly to this which he believed was the last idea of his
fooli