ter of himself,
though his mouth was dry as a whisper and there were goose quills on
his flesh.

But Durand, used to the fetid atmosphere of bar-rooms and to the soft
living of the great city, found his nerve beginning to crack under the
strain. Cold drops stood out on his forehead and his hands shook from
excitement and anxiety. What kind of a man was his enemy to lie there
in the black silence and not once give a sign of where he was, in spite
of crashing bullets? There was something in it hardly human. For the
first time in his life Jerry feared he was up against a better man.

Was it possible that he could have killed the fellow at the first shot?
The comfort of this thought whispered hope in the ear of the
ex-prize-fighter.

A chair crashed wildly. Durand fired again and yet again, his nerves
giving way to a panic that carried him to swift action. He could not
have stood another moment without screaming.

There came the faint sound of a hand groping on the wall and
immediately after a flood of light filled the room.

Clay stood by the door. His revolver covered the crouching gang
leader. His eyes were hard and pitiless.

"Try another shot," he advised ironically.

Jerry did. A harmless click was all the result he got. He knew now
that the cowman had tempted him to waste his last shots at a bit of
furniture flung across the room.

"You'll tell me what you did with Kitty Mason," said Clay in his low,
persuasive voice, just as though there had been no intermission of
flying bullets since he had mentioned the girl before.

"You can't kill me, when I haven't a loaded gun," Durand answered
between dry lips.

The other man nodded an admission of the point. "That's an advantage
you've got of me. You could kill me if I didn't have a gun, because
you're a yellow wolf. But I can't kill you. That's right. But I can
beat hell out of you, and I'm sure goin' to do it."

"Talk's cheap, when you've got a loaded six-gun in your fist," jeered
Jerry.

With a flirt of his hand Clay tossed the revolver to the top of a
book-case, out of easy reach of a man standing on the floor. He ripped
open the buttons of his overcoat and slipped out of it, then moved
forward with elastic step.

"It's you or me now, Jerry Durand."

The prize-fighter gave a snort of derisive triumph. "You damn fool!
I'll eat you alive."

"Mebbeso. I reckon my system can assimilate any whalin' you're liable
to hand me. Go to it."