But the fellow was evidently of another mind, for he backed and
parried and parried and sidestepped until I was almost completely
fagged from the exertion of attempting to finish him.

He was a more adroit swordsman, if possible, than my previous foe,
and I must admit that he led me a pretty chase and in the end came
near to making a sorry fool of me--and a dead one into the bargain.

I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until at length
objects commenced to blur before my eyes and I staggered and blundered
about more asleep than awake, and then it was that he worked his
pretty little coup that came near to losing me my life.

He had backed me around so that I stood in front of the corpse of
his fellow, and then he rushed me suddenly so that I was forced back
upon it, and as my heel struck it the impetus of my body flung me
backward across the dead man.

My head struck the hard pavement with a resounding whack, and
to that alone I owe my life, for it cleared my brain and the pain
roused my temper, so that I was equal for the moment to tearing
my enemy to pieces with my bare hands, and I verily believe that
I should have attempted it had not my right hand, in the act of
raising my body from the ground, come in contact with a bit of cold
metal.

As the eyes of the layman so is the hand of the fighting man when
it comes in contact with an implement of his vocation, and thus I
did not need to look or reason to know that the dead man's revolver,