With the first blue streaks of morning our two war parties are up and moving. They meet in a convenient grove of poplars. The ground is stepped off and pegged; after which hair-trigger Overton and Mr. Catlet pitch a coin. The impartial coin awards the choice of positions to Mr. Catlet, and gives the word to hair-trigger Overton. There is a third toss which settles that the weapons are to be those Galway saw-handles. At this good fortune a steel-blue point of fire shows in the satisfied eye of the General. He recalls how he procured those weapons to kill the first man who spoke evil of the blooming Rachel, and is pleased to think a benignant destiny will not permit them to be robbed of that original right.
The men are led to their respective pegs by Mr. Catlet and hair-trigger Overton. The General, through the experienced strategy of hair-trigger Overton, wears a black coat—high of collar, long of skirt. It buttons close to the chin; not a least glimpse of bullet-guiding white, whether of shirt collar or cravat, is allowed to show. The black coat is purposely voluminous; and the whereabouts of the General's lean frame, tucked away in its folds, is a question not readily replied to. The only mark on the whole sable expanse of that coat is a row of steel-bright buttons. These are not in the middle, but peculiarly to one side. Those steel-bright buttons will draw the fire of dead-shot Dickinson like a magnet. Which is precisely what hair-trigger Overton had in mind.
As the two stand at the pegs, dead-shot Dickinson calls loudly to a friend:
“Watch that third button! It's over the heart! I shall hit him there!”
The grim General says nothing; but the look on his gaunt face reads like a page torn from some book of doom. As he stands waiting the word, he is observed by the watchful Overton to slip something into his mouth. Then his jaws set themselves like flint.
“Gentlemen, are you ready?”
They are ready, dead-shot Dickinson cruelly eager, the somber General adamant. There is a soundless moment, still as death:
“Fire!”
Instantly, like a flash of lightning, the pistol of dead-shot Dickinson explodes. That objective third button disappears, driven in by the vengeful lead! The General rocks a little on his feet with the awful shock of it; then he plants himself as moveless as an oak. Through the curling smoke dead-shot Dickinson makes out the stark, upstanding form. For a moment it is as though he were planet-struck. He shrinks shudderingly from his peg.
“God!” he whispers; “have I missed him?”