“You have a gun; you’re a killer; here I am unarmed and in your power,” he said. “You intend to take me in; I propose to stay here. If I go to San Mateo, it will be as a dead man. I’ll see whether you have the nerve to shoot me down where I now stand. If you have, go to it. You can then take my body to town, but I’ll not have paid the price you name and I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I beat you at the last––in that, at least. Your bragging will be empty. Start your shooting any time you please.” The tone spoke complete contempt.
Weir said nothing. The defiance, the supreme audacity of this assertion, coming so unexpectedly, surprised him and left him at a loss. He would not kill an unresisting man, even Sorenson, his worst enemy. Sorenson in his place probably would not have hesitated to do so, for he had no fine scruples in such matters; but for Steele Weir the thing was no more possible than striking a woman or a child.
It was not a question of nerve, as the other had stated. It was a test of brutality and consciencelessness. To shoot a man while escaping is one thing; to kill him while a prisoner, however contemptuous and brazen, was another. But there are means other than bullets for handling obstinate prisoners.
Weir shifted his weapon so as to grasp the barrel and have the butt free.
“I’ll leave your execution to the proper officials, if an execution is what you want,” he said. “Now will you go?” he demanded, threateningly.
His foe gazed at the clubbed pistol and turned as if 291 to yield. Next instant he whirled, lunging at Weir and flinging his arms about his captor. An exultant exclamation slipped from his lips; his hot breath fell on the engineer’s cheek; his eyes glared into those of the man his arms encircled. He had tricked Weir by his pretense of obstinacy, led him to weaken his guard and had him in his grasp.
Weir braced himself to resist the man’s effort to force him down. Strong arms the other had, now doubly strengthened by hate and a belief in victory. All the power of Sorenson’s great body was exerted to lift him off his feet, crush him in a terrific bear-hug, put him on his back and render him helpless; and Weir in his turn was tensing his muscles and arching his frame with every ounce of his lean, iron-like frame.
Thus they swayed and struggled in the moonlight, without witnesses. A sinister silent fight, marked only by their fierce breathing and fiercer heart-beats. The pistol had dropped from Steele Weir’s hand; instead of attempting to break the other’s hold he had yielded to it and pushing his own arms forward had clasped his hands behind Sorenson’s back in the wrestler’s true defense to such an attack.
Once Sorenson almost had him on his knees, but by a quick powerful upthrust of his legs he regained his upright position. However, it had been a close shave for Weir, for he well knew that his opponent would use any tactics, fair or foul, to kill him if he once lay on his back.
“You hound from hell!” Sorenson snarled. “You crippled my boy, and you shall die for that. You’ve ruined me in San Mateo, and you shall die for that. You jailed Burkhardt and poisoned Gordon and shot Vorse, and you shall die for that. I’m going to choke the life out of you, and grind your dead head into the dust, and 292 then spit on you. That’s how I treat snakes. Say your prayers, if you know any, for you’ll never get another chance. Your friends won’t recognize your remains when I’m done with you.”