“––and the sooner we go the better. How do you want to settle it––shall we draw straws?”
“No, we’ll not draw straws. Go ef you’re afraid; but I won’t stir a step. I came to warn ye, or to fight ye if y’ wanted. Seein’ y’ won’t––good-night.”
Ellis stepped quickly in front of the door, and with the motion Clayton’s hand went to his knife.
“Sit down, man,” demanded Ellis, sternly. “We’re not savages. Let’s settle this matter in civilized fashion.” 318
They confronted each other for a moment, the muscles of Clayton’s face twitching an accompaniment to the nervous fingering of the buckhorn hilt; then he stepped up until they could have touched.
“What d’ y’ mean anyway?” he blazed. “Get out o’ my road.”
Ellis leaned against the door-bar without a word. The fire had burned down, and in the shadow his face had again the same expression of heaviness. The breathing of Clayton, swift and short, like one who struggles physically, painfully intensified the silence of that dimly lighted, log-bound room.
With his right hand Clayton drew his knife; he laid his left on the broad half-circle of wood that answered as a door handle.
“Open that door,” he demanded huskily, “or by God, I’ll stab ye!”
In the half-light the men faced each other, so near their breaths mingled. Twice Clayton tried to strike. The eyes of the other man held him powerless, and to save his life––even to satisfy a new, fierce hate––he could not stir. He stood a moment thus, then an animal-like 319 frenzy, irresistible but impotent, seized him. He darted his head forward and spat in the heavy face so close to his own.