"Look here," Keith swept on, "I'm the challenged party and I have the say-so, haven't I?"
"Yo' can name the weapons," conceded Major Marmaduke Miles.
"All right, we'll call this revolvers, navy revolvers—biggest there are, whatever that is. And close up. None of your half-mile shooting."
"Ten yards," suggested Major Miles with unholy joy.
"And right away—this afternoon," went on Keith. "If that little runt wants trouble, egad he's going to have all his little skin will hold."
But the major would not have this. It was not done. He waived conducting his negotiations through a second, but that was as far as his conventional soul would go. He held out for three o'clock the following afternoon.
"And I wish to apologize, Mistah Keith," he said, on parting, "fo' my ill-considered words of a short time ago. I misunderstood yo' reasons fo' refusin' to fight Mistah Bennett."
He bowed his rotund, tightly buttoned little figure and departed, to strike Jimmy Ware with complete consternation.
Duels in the fifties were almost an acknowledged public institution. Although technically illegal, no one was ever convicted of any of the consequences of such encounters. They were conducted quite openly. Indeed, some of the more famous were actively advertised by steamboat men, who carried excursions to the field. Keith's acceptance of Ware's challenge aroused the keenest interest. Outside the prominence of the men involved, a vague feeling was current that in their persons were symbolized opposing forces in the city's growth. As yet these forces had not segregated to that point where champions were demanded, or indeed would be recognized as such, but vague feelings of antagonism, of alignments, were abroad. Those who later would constitute the Law and Order class generally sympathized with Ware; those whom history was to know as the Vigilantes felt stirrings of partisanship for Keith. Therefore, the following afternoon a small flotilla set sail for the Contra Costa shore, and a crowd of several hundred spectators disembarked at the chosen duelling ground.
Nan knew nothing of all this. Keith was now in such depths of low spirits that his wearied soul did not much care what became of him. He put his affairs in shape, shrugged his shoulders, and went to the encounter with absolute indifference.