He saw the
trigger finger contracting; saw Trevison's free hand clenched, the muscles
corded and knotted--he felt the breathless, strained, unreal calm that
precedes tragedy, grim and swift. He slowly stiffened, but did not shrink
an inch. It took him seconds to raise his gaze to Trevison's face, and
then he caught his breath quickly and smiled with straight lips.

"No; you won't do it, Trevison," he said, slowly; "you're not that kind."
He deliberately swung around in the chair and drew another cigar from a
box on the desk top, lit it and leaned back, again facing the pistol.

Trevison restored the pistol to the holster, brushing a hand uncertainly
over his eyes as though to clear his mental vision, for the shock that had
come with the revelation of Miss Benham's duplicity had made his brain
reel with a lust to kill. He laughed hollowly. His voice came cold and
hard:

"You're right--it wouldn't do. It would be plain murder, and I'm not quite
up to that. You know your men, don't you--you coyote's whelp! You know
I'll fight fair. You'll do yours underhandedly. Get up! There's your gun!
Load it! Let's see if you've got the nerve to face a gun, with one in your
own hand!"

"I'll do my fighting in my own way." Corrigan's eyes kindled, but he did
not move. Trevison made a gesture of contempt, and wheeled, to go. As he
turned he caught a glimpse of a hand holding a pistol, as it vanished into
a narrow crevice between a jamb and the door that led to the rear room. He
drew his own weapon with a single movement, and swung around to Corrigan,
his muscles tensed, his eyes alert and chill with menace.

"I'll bore you if you wink an eyelash!" he warned, in a whisper.

He leaped, with the words, to the door, lunging against it, sending it
crashing back so that it smashed against the wall, overbalancing some
boxes that reposed on a shelf and sending them clattering. He stood in the
opening, braced for another leap, tall, big, his muscles swelling and
rippling, recklessly eager. Against the partition, which was still
swaying, his arms outstretched, a pistol in one hand, trying to crowd
still farther back to escape the searching glance of Trevison's eyes, was
Braman.

He had overheard Trevison's tense whisper to Corrigan. The cold savagery
in it had paralyzed him, and he gasped as Trevison's eyes found him, and
the pistol that he tried to raise dangled futilely from his nerveless
fingers. It thudded heavily upon the boards of the