“That's me!” said McKinstry, coming forward with heavy deliberation. “I joined this yer delegation at the crossroads instead o' my brother, who had the call. I reckon et's all the same—or mebbe better. For I perpose to take this yer gentleman off your hands.”
He lifted his slumbrous eyes for the first time to the master, and at the same time put himself between him and Harrison. “I perpose,” he continued, “to take him at his word; I perpose ter give him a chance to answer with a gun. And ez I reckon, by all accounts, there's no man yer ez hez a better right than ME, I perpose to be the man to put that question to him in the same way. Et may not suit some gents,” he continued slowly, facing an angry exclamation from the lank figure behind him, “ez would prefer to hev eleven men to take up THEIR private quo'lls, but even then I reckon that the man who is the most injured hez the right to the first say and that man's ME.”
With a careful deliberation that had a double significance to the malcontents, he handed his own rifle to the master and without looking at him continued: “I reckon, sir, you've seen that afore, but ef it ain't quite to your hand, any of those gents, I kalkilate, will be high-toned enuff to giv you the chyce o' theirs. And there's no need o' trapsin' beyon' the township lines, to fix this yer affair; I perpose to do it in ten minutes in the brush yonder.”
Whatever might have been the feelings and intentions of the men around him, the precedence of McKinstry's right to the duello was a principle too deeply rooted in their traditions to deny; if any resistance to it had been contemplated by some of them, the fact that the master was now armed, and that Mr. McKinstry would quickly do battle at his side with a revolver in defence of his rights, checked any expression. They silently drew back as the master and McKinstry slowly passed out of the school-house together, and then followed in their rear. In that interval the master turned to McKinstry and said in a low voice: “I accept your challenge and thank you for it. You have never done me a greater kindness—whatever I have done to YOU—yet I want you to believe that neither now nor THEN—I meant you any harm.”
“Ef you mean by that, sir, that ye reckon ye won't return my fire, ye're blind and wrong. For it will do you no good with them,” he said with a significant wave of his crippled hand towards the following crowd, “nor me neither.”
Firmly resolved, however, that he would not fire at McKinstry, and clinging blindly to this which he believed was the last idea of his foolish life, he continued on without another word until they reached the open strip of chemisal that flanked the clearing.
The rude preliminaries were soon settled. The parties armed with rifles were to fire at the word from a distance of eighty yards, and then approach each other, continuing the fight with revolvers until one or the other fell. The selection of seconds was effected by the elder Harrison acting for McKinstry, and after a moment's delay by the volunteering of the long, lank figure previously noted to act for the master. Preoccupied by other thoughts, Mr. Ford paid little heed to his self-elected supporter, who to the others seemed to be only taking that method of showing his contempt for McKinstry's recent insult. The master received the rifle mechanically from his hand and walked to position. He noticed, however, and remembered afterwards that his second was half hidden by the trunk of a large pine to his right that marked the limit of the ground.
In that supreme moment it must be recorded, albeit against all preconceived theory, that he did NOT review his past life, was NOT illuminated by a flash of remorseful or sentimental memory, and did NOT commend his soul to his Maker, but that he was simply and keenly alive to the very actual present in which he still existed and to his one idea of not firing at his adversary. And if anything could render his conduct more theoretically incorrect it was a certain exalted sense that he was doing quite right and was not only NOT a bad sort of fellow, but one whom his survivors might possibly regret!
“Are you ready, gentlemen? One—two—three—fi . . . !”
The explosions were singularly simultaneous—so remarkable in fact that it seemed to the master that his rifle, fired in the air, had given a DOUBLE report. A light wreath of smoke lay between him and his opponent. He was unhurt—so evidently was his adversary, for the voice rose again.