'I'm glad to hear you say that! Now, will you fight me for her?'
He stopped in his walk and, turning round, clutched me by the arm.
'No, I will not,' I replied firmly, at the same time feeling that I would have given anything in the world to have been able to answer 'Yes.'
'I thought not,' he continued, with a sigh. 'You're a coward, and I knew it.'
'Steady! steady!' I said. 'One more remark like that and you'll get into trouble.'
'Then let me see if this will help you,' he cried, and at the same time he lifted his arm and hit me a hard blow across the mouth with the back of his left hand. I was about to strike back, when I suddenly changed my mind.
'You have raised your hand to me,' I said quietly. 'And a blow dealt in anger I'll take from no man on God's earth, much less you, Colin McLeod. I refused to fight you just now—for the simple reason that you are Sheilah's kith and kin. But since you've struck me, I'd do it if you were her own blood brother. One thing first, however. Be so good as to do me the justice to remember that you yourself have forced the quarrel on me.'
'I will remember,' he said sullenly. 'And where is it to be?'
'Down in the bit of scrub by the Big Gum at the creek bend,' I answered. 'We're not likely to be disturbed there.'
'At eight to-night. I am on patrol duty and can't get away before.'