Rowlett still kept his arms down, but he lunged and sought to drive his knee to his adversary's groin, meaning to draw and fire during the moment of paralyzing pain that must ensue.
As it happened, though, Parish had also anticipated some such manœuvre of foul fighting, and he sprung aside in time to let the unbalanced Rowlett pitch stumblingly forward. When he straightened he was again looking into the muzzle of a drawn pistol.
Rowlett had been drawing his own weapon as he lunged, but now he dropped it as if it had scalded his fingers, and once more hastily raised his hands above his head.
The whole byplay was swift to such timing as belongs to sleight-of-hand, but the split-second quickness of the left-hander was as conclusively victorious as if the matter had been deliberate, and now he had margin to realize that he need not fire—for the present.
"Ef ye'd been jest a mite quicker in drawin', Bas," he declared, ironically, "or jest a mite tardier in throwin' down thet gun—I'd hev hed ter kill ye. Now we kin talk some more."
The conflict of wills was over and Rowlett's voice changed to a whine as he asked beseechingly: "What proof hev I got ye won't show ther paper ter some outsider afore we fights hit out?"
"Ye've got my pledge," answered Thornton, disdainfully, "an' albeit ye knows ye don't keep 'em yoreself, ye knows thet I don't nuver break 'em. Ye've got ther knowledge, moreover, thet I hain't a-goin' ter be content save ter sottle this business with ye fust handed—man ter man." He paused there, and his tone altered when he continued: "Thet paper'll lay whar no man won't nuver see hit save myself—unless ye breaks yore word. Ef I gits murdered, one man'll know whar thet paper's at—but not what's in hit. He'll give hit over ter ther Harpers an' they'll straightway hunt ye down an' kill ye like a mad dog. What does ye say?"
The other stood with face demoniacally impassioned, yet fading into the pasty gray of fear—the fear that was the more unmanageable because it was a new emotion which had never risen to confront him before.
"I knows when I've got ter knock under," he made sullen admission, at last, "an' thet time's done come now. But I hain't ther only enemy ye've got. S'pose atter all ther war breaks out afresh an' ye gits slain in battle—or in some fray with other men. Then I'd hev ter die jest ther same, albeit I didn't hev no hand in ther matter."
Thornton laughed.