Pierre, doubtless, had noticed that stone, and
therefore he had made the suggestion that they stand where they were.
Otherwise, how could there be that singular calm in the steady eyes
which looked across at him?
Also, how explain the hunger of that stare? Was not he McGurk, and was
not this man whom he had already once shot down? God, what a fool he
had been not to linger an instant longer in that saloon in the old
days and place the final shot in the prostrate body! In all his life
he had made only one such mistake, and now that folly was pursuing
him. And now--
The foot of the white horse lifted--struck the rock. The sound of its
fall was lost in the explosion of two guns, and a ring of metal on
metal. The revolver snapped from the hand of McGurk, whirled in a
flashing circle, and clanged on the rocks at his feet. The bullet of
Pierre had struck the barrel and knocked it cleanly from his hand.
It was luck, only luck, that placed that shot, and his own bullet,
which had started first, had traveled wild, for there stood Pierre le
Rouge, smiling faintly, alert, calm.
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