The rest of us were strung about before the house in a half-circle, the three runners being on the outside of the circle. Everything was quiet, for Borden's hounds don't hunt with their mouths open. Young Dempster carried his bucket of water with scarcely a slop or a splash; the inner deputy gradually moved out and behind him. Two men at the tail of the line fell away from their trees to meet him—and there he was in a ring. The man nearest me, still leaning on his rifle, gave a cluck of his tongue as if it were all over. But it was not. A shot cracked from the door, and the deputy who was on the outside flipped his hand in the air as if he had been stung. His fingers were all bloody. That was a pretty shot, I tell you; old Jack Dempster ticked the button on his son's shirt to make it, for the men were running breast and breast from the door.
The boy saw the trap he was in. Just as he came even with me, he whirled and took his chance through the line. It was quick—oh, quick as a cat! Three of us met him. But he was in moccasins and light-footed, jumping this way and that, and though my neighbor flung his rifle between his legs, he skipped it and was nearly through. He sprang to one side, leaped at Fitch—the water was splashing now—and swerved past him. Maybe it was the nasty look on his face that made Fitch shoot, anyway the fellow fired his revolver. It did not seem as if he could miss; Joe ran straight for the cabin. Half way there the bucket slipped from his hand; then he began to stagger a little. Near the door he went to his knees and, with a look over his shoulder at us while fumbling for his revolver, crawled behind the chopping-log.
"I got him before he got me," said Fitch, fairly green about the mouth, "He was going to kill me."
Borden took a step toward him, paused for the time of a single breath, whirled around, and was behind his tree. As for the other men, I never want to see such faces as they wore.
After that it seemed to me as if our business had come to a standstill. It was little shelter we had, just a tree apiece. We might as well have been tied to them with cords, for the old man was watching from his lair, and that with his boy's blood red in his eyes, ready to catch us either advancing or retiring. Nor was the young fellow so badly hurt but what he could pull a trigger. And Borden never retired that I ever heard of—that wasn't his way. Any instant I expected to hear a bullet snip the bark on my tree. I never felt so big before or since, big as a hill, and I drew myself together mighty small, I can tell you.
While I was wondering what would come next, Borden stepped out into the open. He walked toward the door, calm and steady, and without particular haste, his revolver in its holster. It all happened so quickly it took me by surprise; the Dempsters, man and boy, must have been struck by it, for not a shot was fired. But to advance that way, to clasp hands with death! Maybe you've heard soldiers tell about charging in the face of cannon, how they felt—I know I felt worse just to see him go straight toward the house. I got dizzy, dizzy sick. Then it had all fallen so still, the little wind in the trees and the leaves stirring over the ground. I looked at the other men, thinking they could somehow change it; the grizzled old chap was chewing his tobacco as fast as he could, and the man with the bloody fingers had finished tying them up in his handkerchief. First thing I knew I was half out from behind my tree, watching him.
"Keep back, Dick Borden," warned the man in the house—I swear his voice shook as he said it—"keep back, or, by God, I'll shoot!"
"I'm coming into that door, Jack Dempster," was Borden's reply.
He never flinched, never stopped. Then the rifle sounded, and, like an echo, the boy's revolver echoed it. Borden was hit—how could they fail at that distance and such a mark? But he managed to win the log where young Dempster lay. He stood there an instant, then slowly sat down upon it. A second time the young fellow lifted his weapon, and every man of us could see the Marshal looking into the muzzle. Orders or no orders, that was too much for even the deputies; the click of their rifle hammers ran along the trees. Borden heard it.
"Don't shoot, men!"