He had said this much and his long legs were still in motion, when Dick leaped between them and holding his rifle at his hip with muzzle leveled at the infuriated man, he commanded:
“Stop! if you touch him I’ll let daylight through you!”
The Professor halted and turned upon the other, his frame trembling with surcharged fury.
“I’ll kill you!”
It is impossible to picture the frightful scene at this moment. Bunk Johnson was silent and awed. Harvey was a little to one side and in front of him, while in the other direction stood Dick, one foot advanced as if ready to bound forward, his right hand inclosing the lock of his gun, so that the forefinger could be seen crooked around the trigger. The weapon was so pointed that only a slight pressure was needed to send a bullet through the long gaunt body hardly a dozen feet away.
“All right,” calmly replied Dick; “you can begin as soon as you please, my distinguished friend, but before you reach me you will have to stop ten spheres of lead and by that time I calculate I shall be able to handle you without the need of my Winchester.”
Professor Morgan may have been “off his base,” but he could not fail to read the meaning of those words, backed up by the pose of him who uttered them. He stopped like a tiger baffled of his prey.
“Why don’t you shoot?” he hissed.
“You haven’t given me the excuse I’m waiting for; in the case of every one of the seven men I have shot my explanation secured my acquittal in the courts. I’m taking the same course with you.”
The sight of Harvey seemed to concentrate once more the lunatic’s resentment against him. But for the presence of that Winchester and the man behind the gun, he would have rended the youth, provided the latter did not stand him off with his Colt.