"Let him alone, Harry." Bob Flick's voice arresting Seagreave in his
swift rush toward Hanson had never been more liquid, more languid. All
through Hanson's speech his face had not shown even a flicker of
expression. "This is mine. It always has been mine, and I've known it
ever since you and me, Mr.----, I never can recall your name, but, then,
yellow dogs ain't entitled to 'em, anyway--met in the desert."

"I guess that's straight. You always had it in for me from the first
night I saw her. Well, you'll only be finishing what she begun. She
broke me; she drove me straight to hell. Maybe it was a mis-spent life I
offered her, but when I met her I had money and success, I wasn't a
soak. I still had the don't-give-a-damn snap in me, and, even if you're
middle-aged, that's youth. But she's like a fever that you can't shake
off. And she don't play fair. But she's the only one. You know that, Bob
Flick, and she didn't have the right--"

"I ain't ever questioned her right, Hanson"--Flick used his name for the
first time--"and I'm standing here to prove it now. For the sake of Miss
Gallito, because she once took notice of you, I'm going to treat you
like you was a gentleman. Here's your gun. Take your twenty paces. And,
remember, this ain't to wound, it's to kill."

Hanson took the pistol and measured off the paces. Then he turned and
looked from one man to another with a smile of triumph on his evil face.
"Broke by the Black Pearl and then shot by her dog! That's a nice
finish. I can shoot some myself, but I ain't in your class, Flick, and
you know it. I guess not. I prefer my own route." He looked toward the
cabin, where it seemed to him that Pearl or her shadow wavered a moment
in the doorway. "Here's dying to you, honey," and before either man