As he left the water he heard the other's horse splashing behind him. The road turned from the river through a sandy cut in the woods. At the woods' edge the bandaged head was beside him.
"Stranger, you don't happen to have that gun about you you stole from me?"
Gard turned and looked into the small, black, fatal circle of a pistol barrel, like an eye-socket with the ball in ominous retreat.
"I do not carry weapons," he said, quietly.
"You don't! I reckon you do. You ought to have plugged me down at the ford with one of those weapons you don't carry. We're going back."
"If you wish to take my life—"
"I'd like to, mightily."
"Very well."
"You're a Yankee spy. Wheel around there and keep ahead."
"This mistake delays me. I have permission—"