“What do you mean by ‘here’? I might better ask why you came here,” he retorted. “I don’t know where I am. Do I look as if I came here by choice?” He paused. “Listen,” he said, quite master of himself, “I’ll tell you why I came. I shall never get away alive, anyway––you can have the truth if you want it. I got off my horse in the night to get a drink. He bolted. I couldn’t walk. I climbed up here to hide till my wounds heal. Now, I’ve told you the truth. Where am I?”
The grip of her hands on the rifle might have relaxed somewhat, but she saw his deadly revolver in its accustomed place and did not mean to surrender her command of him. Nor would she tell him where he was. She parried his questions. He could get no information of any sort out of her. Yet he saw that something more than his mere presence detained and perplexed her. Her prompt condemnation of him rankled in his mind, and the strain of facing her suspicion wore on him. “I won’t ask you anything more,” he said 170 at length. “You do right to give me no information. It might help me save my life. I can’t talk any longer. You know you think I’ve no right to live––that’s what you think, isn’t it? Why don’t you shoot?” She only stared at him. “Why don’t you answer?” he demanded recklessly.
Nan summoned her resolution. “I know you tried to kill my cousin,” she said hotly, after he had taunted her once more. “And I don’t know you won’t try it again as soon as you are able. And I am going to think what to do before I tell you anything or do anything.”
“You know I tried to kill your cousin! You know nothing of the kind. Your cousin tried to kill me. He’s a bully and a coward, a man that doesn’t know what fair fighting means. Tell him that for me.”
“You are safe in abusing him when he’s not here.”
“Send him to me! This is no place for a woman that calls me what you call me––send your cousin and all his friends!” His voice shook with anger. “Tell him I’m wounded; tell him I’ve had nothing to eat since I fought him before. And if he’s still afraid”––de Spain drew and broke his revolver almost like a flash. In that incredibly quick instant she realized he might have threatened 171 her life before she could move a muscle––“tell your fine cousin I’ve got one cartridge left––just one!” So saying, he held in one hand the loaded cartridge and in the other the empty revolver.
“You think little of bloodshed, I know,” she returned unpleasantly.
“I think a whole lot,” he drawled in painful retort, “of fair fighting.”
“And I’m a woman––you do well to taunt me with that.”
“I did not taunt you with it. You are hatefully unjust,” he protested sullenly.