Of course I was selected as Mark's second, and at daybreak I had him
up and out for some lessons in pistol practice before meeting Laird.
I didn't have to wake him. He had not been asleep. We had been
talking since midnight over the duel that was coming. I had been
telling him of the different duels in which I had taken part, either
as principal or second, and how many men I had helped to kill and
bury, and how it was a good plan to make a will, even if one had not
much to leave. It always looked well, I told him, and seemed to be
a proper thing to do before going into a duel. So Mark made a will
with a sort of gloomy satisfaction, and as soon as it was light
enough to see, we went out to a little ravine near the meeting-
place, and I set up a board for him to shoot at. He would step out,
raise that big pistol, and when I would count three he would shut
his eyes and pull the trigger. Of course he didn't hit anything; he
did not come anywhere near hitting anything. Just then we heard
somebody shooting over in the next ravine. Sam said:

"What's that, Steve?"

"Why," I said, "that's Laud. His seconds are practising him over
there."

It didn't make my principal any more cheerful to hear that pistol go
off every few seconds over there. Just then I saw a little mud-hen
light on some sage-brush about thirty yards away.

"Mark," I said, "let me have that pistol. I'll show you how to
shoot."

He handed it to me, and I let go at the bird and shot its head off,
clean. About that time Laird and his second came over the ridge to
meet us. I saw them coming and handed Mark back the pistol. We
were looking at the bird when they came up.

"Who did that?" asked Laird's second.

"Sam," I said.

"How far off was it?"

"Oh, about thirty yards."

"Can he do it again?"

"Of course," I said; "every time. He could do it twice that far."

Laud's second turned to his principal.

"Laird," he said, "you don't want to fight that man. It's just like
suicide. You'd better settle this thing, now."

So there was a settlement. Laird took back all he had said; Mark
said he really had nothing against Laird--the discussion had been
purely journalistic and did not need to be settled in blood. He
said that both he and Laird were probably the victims of their
friends. I remembe