It won't hurt ye!"

"He's afraid the bolt will shoot back!" Laughter from the McKinstrys.

"Come outer the tall grass and show yourself, you black, mud-eating
gopher."

"He can't. He's dropped his grit and is sarchin' for it." Goading
laughter from the Harrisons.

Each man waited for that single shot which would precipitate the fight.
Even in their lawlessness the rude instinct of the duello swayed them.
The officer of the law recognized the principle as well as its practical
advantage in a collision, but he hesitated to sacrifice one of his men
in an attack on the barn, which would draw the fire of McKinstry at that
necessarily fatal range. As a brave man he would have taken the risk
himself, but as a prudent one, he reflected that his hurriedly collected
posse were all partisans, and if he fell the conflict would resolve
itself into a purely partisan struggle without a single unprejudiced
witness to justify his conduct in the popular eye. The master also knew
this; it had checked his first impulse to come forward as a mediator;
his only reliance now was on Mrs. McKinstry's restraint and the
sheriff's forbearance. The next instant both seemed to be imperilled.

"Well, why don't you wade in?" sneered Dick McKinstry; "who do you
reckon's hidden in the barn?"

"I'll tell ye," said a harsh, passionate voice from the hill-side. "It's
Cressy McKinstry and the school-master hidin' in the hay."

Both parties turned quickly towards the intruder who had approached them
unperceived. But the speech was followed by a more startling revulsion
of sentiment as Mrs. McKinstry's voice rang out from the barn, "You lie,
Seth Davis!"

The brief advantage offered to the sheriff in Davis's advent as a
neutral witness, was utterly lost by this unlooked-for revelation of
Mrs. McKinstry's presence in the barn! The fates were clearly against
him! A woman in the fight, and an old one at that! A white woman to be
forcibly ejected! In the whole unwritten code of Southwestern chivalry
there was no such precedent.

"Stand back," he said disgustedly to his followers, "stand back and
let the d----d barn slide. But you, Hiram McKinstry, I'll give YOU five
minutes to shake yourself clear of your wife's petticoats and git!" His
blood was up now--the quicker from his momentary weakness and the trick
of which he thought himself a dupe.

Again the fatal signal seemed imminent, again it was delayed. For Hiram
McKinstry, with clanking spurs and ri