Williams continued reloading, and was driving the patch down upon the powder. Dic cocked his rifle, and raising it halfway to his shoulder, said:—
"Don't put the bullet in unless you wish me to see a squirrel. I'll not miss. Throw me your bullet pouch."
Williams, whose face looked like a mask of death, threw the bullet pouch to Dic, and, in obedience to a gesture, walked forward on the path. After taking a few steps he looked backward to observe the man he had tried to murder.
"You need not watch me," Dic said; "I'm not hunting squirrels."
Soon they reached the open field. Dic had cleared every foot of the ground, and loved it because he had won it single-handed in a battle royal with nature; but nature was a royal foe that, when conquered, gave royal spoils of victory. The rich bottom soil had year by year repaid Dic many-fold for his labor. He loved the land, and if fate should prove unkind to him, he would choose that spot of all others upon which to fall.
"Is this the place?" asked Williams.
"Yes," answered Dic, tossing the bullet pouch. "Now you may load."
When Williams had finished loading, Dic said: "I will drop my hat here. We will walk from each other, you going west, I going east. The sun is in the south. When we have each taken one hundred steps, we will call 'Ready,' turn, and fire when we choose."
Accordingly, Dic dropped his hat, and the two men started, one toward the east, one toward the west, while the sun was shining in the south. Williams quickly ran his hundred steps.
Dic had counted forty steps when he heard the cry "Dic" coming from the forest ten yards to the south, and simultaneously the sharp crack of a rifle behind him. At the same instant his left leg gave way under him and he fell to the ground, supposing he had stepped into a muskrat hole. After he had fallen he turned quickly toward Williams and saw that gentleman hastily reloading his gun. Then he fully realized that his antagonist had shot him, though he was unable to account for the voice he had heard from the forest. That mystery, too, was quickly explained when he heard Billy's dearly loved voice calling to Williams:—