"I'll count to ten, slowly and evenly. When I reach ten we fire?"
"Yes."
"I'll trust you not to beat the count, Dick."
"And I you. Start."
He counted quietly, evenly: "One, two, three, four, five six, seven, eight, nine—ten."
The gun jerked up in the hand of Wilbur, but he stayed the movement with his finger pressing still upon the trigger. The hand of Pierre had not moved.
He cried: "By God, Pierre, what do you mean?"
There was no answer. He strode across the intervening space dropped his gun, and caught the other by the shoulders. Out of the nerveless fingers of Pierre the revolver slipped and crushed a dead twig on the ground, and a pair of lifeless eyes stared up to Dick Wilbur.
"In the name of God, Pierre, what has happened to you?"
"Dick, why didn't you fire?"