ted that he was game.

Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt that held
his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its
holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle
behind the rock.

Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside their hats.
For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed
the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the
distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the
man who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their
acquaintance came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge
had met Sibyl in the studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the
sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had
strengthened the feeling of antagonism which had marked their first
meeting. And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying
that in his story of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist,
in that instant, knew that this meeting was inevitable.

It was only for a moment that the two men--who in their lives and
characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood regarding each other,
each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the death. Deliberately,
they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their heads towered the
great cliff. A thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the
bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the silent, mighty hills
watched--the wild and lonely wilderness waited.

As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers,
warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers,
they were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier,
but Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut,
muscular firmness.

They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage age might have met, bare
handed, they came together. Locked in each other's arms, their limbs
entwined, with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and taut
nerves they struggled. One moment they crushed against the rocky wall of
the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and hung
over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts, laboring breath, and
clenched teeth they wrestled.

James Rutlidge's foot slipped on the rocky floor; but, with a desperate
effort, he regained his momentary loss. Aaron King