The mountaineer's lips drew back, his body quivered, and the finger on the rifle's trigger trembled.
Above him, Donald stood equally tense and pale. He felt that he should be praying as he had never prayed before, but wrath possessed his spirit wholly, and his mind was completely concentrated on that lean forefinger, whose slightest tension meant death. Moments like these come but once in the lifetime of the average man, if, indeed, they ever come at all; but, when they do, when he suddenly finds himself face to face with some cataclysmic upheaval in human or external nature that threatens to rend the thin but impenetrable curtain which separates him from eternity, the salient characteristic of his being is unmasked and stands forth, naked. If he be at heart a coward, even though he may honestly never have suspected himself of cowardice, he will try to flee, or cringe and grovel for mercy; if his soul is stayed upon the immortal and everlasting truths, he will face what Fate may hold with the resigned fortitude which was the martyrs'; but, if he is merely a man, strong with the courage of the beast, refined and strengthened in the fires of intellect, he will be more likely to stand his ground unflinchingly and cast his defiance in the teeth of the danger which threatens, wrathful, but unafraid.
Donald was of the latter breed. He made no move; but the cords and veins in his muscular neck and hands swelled visibly, and his dark gray eyes took on a steely glint, as they bored steadily into Judd's glowering black ones.
Suddenly, with a deep oath, the mountaineer dropped the butt of his gun to the ground. Both men breathed a deep sigh, and the latter said: "No, I kaint shoot an unarmed man, even ef he air a skunk. But hark ye. I warns ye now fer the last time. Clar out uv this hyar mountain terday, er go armed an' ready, fer, by Gawd A'mighty, I aims ter shoot ye dead the next time I meets ye. Hit's yo' er me now."
When the other dropped his weapon, Donald had almost decided to make an attempt to clear the atmosphere by telling him again that his suspicions were utterly groundless and that, so far from having any intention of stealing the affections of the mountain child whom Judd loved, he was betrothed to another. But, at the challenge to fight, something, which he could neither explain afterwards nor control then, swept away the half-formed resolve, and the heat of primal hate sent a burning flush through him and drove cool reason utterly from its throne.
"If you didn't have that gun, you damned coward, I'd come down there this instant, and thrash you within an inch of your worthless life," he shouted, heedless of consequences; too angry to care what might happen. And simultaneously, spurred on by his own blind passion, he slid down the bank and, with fists clenched, advanced on Judd. A yard ahead of him bristled Mike, a canine fury with gleaming teeth bared and muscles tensed for a spring. His master's quarrel was his also.
"Call off thet damned dawg, ef yo' don't want fer him ter git shot," raged the other, white with anger. "I reckon thet the time hes come fer me ter teach ye a lesson; p'raps then a rifle bullet won't be nowise necessary. Yo' tie up thet devil, an' I'll hev it out with ye, now." Wrath robbed him, too, of all caution and he flung his gun far to one side as Donald, with hands that trembled so violently that he could barely tie the knots, slipped his handkerchief through Mike's collar and fastened him securely to a stout bush. Then he faced the infuriated mountaineer.
"Hit's yo' er me," panted the latter, assuming a pantherlike crouch.
"Let it go at that," answered the city man, dropping naturally into a fighting position.
The veneer of our vaunted civilization is, at the best, thin, and every man, in whose veins runs red blood, has within him pent-up volcanic forces which require but little awakening to produce a soul-shattering upheaval. Donald knew that his being shouted aloud for battle—why, he didn't pause to analyze. Judd knew full well what he was fighting for. It was the woman whom his heart had claimed as his mate, regardless of what his chances of winning her were.