Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 148: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

314 convenient distance apart, you see, and wait with our arms folded for the next time the white horse paws the rocks, because when I kill you, McGurk, I want you to die knowing that another man was faster on the draw and straighter with his bullets than you are. D’you see?” He could not have spoken with a more formal politeness if he had been asking the other to pass first through the door of a dining-room. The wonder of McGurk grew and the sweat on his forehead seemed to be spreading a chill through his entire body. He said: “I see. You trust all to the cross, eh, Pierre? The little cross around your neck?” ‘““ The cross is gone,”’ said Pierre le Rouge. ‘“ Why should I use it against a night-rider, McGurk? Are you ready?” And McGurk, not trusting his voice for some strange reason, nodded. The two folded their arms. But the white horse which had been paw- ing the stones so eagerly a moment before was now unusually quiet. The very postures of the men seemed to have frozen him to stone, a beautiful, marble statue, with the moonlight glistening on the muscles of his perfect shoulders. At length he stirred. At once a quiver jerked through the tense bodies of the wait- ing men, but the white horse had merely stiffened and raised his head high. Now; with arched neck and flaunting tail he neighed loudly, as if he asked a question. How could he know, dumb brute, that what he asked only death could answer? And as they waited an itching came at the palnt of McGurk’s hand. It was not much, just a tingle of the blood. To ease it, he closed his fingers and found that his hand was moist with cold perspiration. He began to wonder if his fingers would be slippery on the butt of the gun. Then he tried covertly to dry them against his shirt. But he ceased this again, knowing that he must be of hair-trigger alertness to watch for the stamp of the white horse. It occurred to him, also, that he was standing on a loose stone which might wab- ble when he pulled his gun, and he cursed himself silently for his hasty folly. Pierre, THE ARGOSY. deubtless, had noticed that stone, and there- fore he had made the suggestion that they stand where they were. Otherwise, how could there be that singular calm in the steady eyes which looked across at him? Also, how explain the hunger of that stare? Was not he McGurk, and was not this a man whom he had already once shot down? God, what a fool he had been not to linger an instant longer in that saloon in the old days and place the final shot in the prostrate body! In all his life he had made only one such mistake, and now that folly was pursuing him. And now— The foot of the white horse lifted—struck the rock. The sound of its fall was lost in the explosion of two guns, and a ring of metal on metal. The revolver snapped from the hand of McGurk, whirled in a flashing circle, and clanged on the rocks at his feet. The bullet of Pierre had struck the barrel and knocked it cleanly from his hand. It was luck, only luck, that placed that shot, and his own bullet, which had started first, had traveled wild; for there stoed Pierre le Rouge, smiling faintly, alert, calm. For the first time in his life McGurk had missed. He set his teeth and waited for death. | But that steady voice of Pierre said: “To shoot you would be a pleasure; it would even be a luxury, but there wouldn’t be any lasting satisfaction in it. So there lies your gun at your feet. Well, here lies mine.” He dropped his own weapon to a position corresponding with that of McGurk’s. “We were both very wild that time. We must do better now. We'll stoop for our guns, McGurk. The signal? No, we won’t wait for the horse to stamp. The signal will be when you stoop for your gun. You shall have every advantage, you see? Start for that gun, McGurk, when you’re ready for the end.” The hand of McGurk stretched out and his arm stiffened, but it seemed as though all the muscles of his back had grown stiff. He could not bend. It was strange. It was both ludicrous and incomprehensible. Per- haps he had grown stiff with cold in that position. comircbooks