Just then Luke Bradley ran up the sidewalk and out on the veranda near Westerfelt. He had a warning on his lips, but seeing the critical situation he said nothing. A white, tigerish look came into the face of Westerfelt. The cords of his neck tightened as he leaned slowly towards Wambush. He was about to spring.
"Don't be a fool, John," cautioned Bradley. "Be ashamed o' yorese'f, Toot! Drap that gun, an' fight like a man ur not at all!"
Wambush's eye ran along the revolver, following every movement of Westerfelt's with the caution of a panther watching dangerous prey.
"One more inch and you are a dead man!" he said, slowly.
Mrs. Floyd, who was on the veranda, cried out and threw her arms round Harriet, who seemed ready to run between the two men. No one quite saw how it happened, but Westerfelt suddenly bent near the earth and sprang forward. Wambush's revolver went off over his head, and before he could cock it again, Westerfelt, with a swift sweep of his arm, had sent it spinning through a window-pane in the hotel.
"Ah!" escaped somebody's lips in the silent crowd, and the two men, closely on the alert, faced each other.
"Part 'em, men; what are you about?" cried Mrs. Floyd.
"Yes, part 'em," laughed a man on the edge of the crowd; "somebody 'll get his beauty spiled; Toot kin claw like a pant'er; I don't know what t'other man kin do, but he looks game."
"No, let 'em fight it out fa'r an' squar'," suggested red-faced Buck Hillhouse, the bar-keeper, in the autocratic tone he used in conducting cock-fights in his back yard.
The blood had left Westerfelt's face. Wambush's eyes gleamed desperately; disarmed, he looked less a man than an infuriated beast. Westerfelt was waiting for him to make the attack, but, unlike his antagonist, was growing calmer every second. All at once Wambush sent his right arm towards Westerfelt's face so quickly that the spectators scarcely saw it leave his side, but it was not quicker than Westerfelt's left, which skilfully parried the thrust. Then, before Toot could shield himself, Westerfelt struck him with the force of a battering-ram squarely in the mouth.