“So do I,” said DeBar.
He rubbed his hands and twisted them until the knuckles cracked.
“I'm not afraid and I know that you're not, Phil,” he went on, with his eyes on the top of the stove, “but I wish it was over, just the same. Somehow I'd a'most rather stay up here another year or two than—kill you.”
“Kill me!” exclaimed Philip, the old fire leaping back into his veins.
DeBar's quiet voice, his extraordinary self-confidence, sent a flush of anger into Philip's face.
“You're talking to me again as if I were a child, DeBar. My instructions were to bring you back, dead or alive—and I'm going to!”
“We won't quarrel about it, Phil,” replied the outlaw as quietly as before. “Only I wish it wasn't you I'm going to fight. I'd rather kill half-a-dozen like the others than you.”
“I see,” said Philip, with a perceptible sneer in his voice. “You're trying to work upon my sympathy so that I will follow your suggestion—and go back. Eh?”
“You'd be a coward if you did that,” retorted DeBar quickly. “How are we going to settle it, Phil?”
Philip drew his frozen revolver from its holster and held it over the stove.