“'My God, I have missed him!' he cried.
“'Step to your peg, sir,' roared Overton, pausing in his count and cocking a pistol; 'step to your peg, or I'll blow your head from your body!'
“Dickenson stood again to his peg and turned his eyes from me; his face was the color of tobacco ashes.
“Overton resumed his count. 'One!' 'Click!'” My pistol caught at half-cock. Overton paused and I re-cocked my pistol; Dickenson white and firm to his peg—a man who had played his life away.
“'Two!' cried Overton.
“My pistol responded; the lead tore its way through the midst of Dickenson's body. He crippled slowly down on one knee; and then he fell along on his face, and next turned over on his back with a sort of twitching jerk. I never took my eyes from him.”
“And your wound,” said I, “was a serious one, I well know that.”
“My ribs were broken, while my boot was clogged with the blood which ran down beneath my garments. The bullet I placed between my teeth was crushed as flat as a two-bit piece.”
“It was hardy work,” said I, “bearing up and firing on the heels of such a wound.”
“Sir, I was thinking on her”—glancing at the miniature. “I should have killed that man though he had put his bullet through my heart.”