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 blood or break your revolver,—throw the weapon away but put the cartridges in your pocket. If you can kill me by your hands I'll be willing to die. In that way you'll have a chance to show whether you're a coward or not. You're bigger than I."

"Ha—Lida's just fool enough to help you."

"I said man to man. Leave her out of it. She'll not harm a hair of your head.—Here's an open space. We'll fight till one of us is no longer able to leave. One of us will be left here dead. That's a man's way. Will you agree or will you prove to be a yellow coward?"

"Take off your coat. No man ever found me yellow yet," Elvin said, as he broke the revolver, removed the cartridges and threw the empty weapon away.

"Now you talk as I had always believed men talk!" exclaimed Bennet.

Both men now began to strip. Lida clung to Bennet's arm as she began to cry softly. "Don't fight, Truman, over me. He'll maybe kill you. I don't want you to die.—I don't want you to die."

"There's no way out of it, Heart of Mine. If not this way then it would be death for both of us. There's no use asking for sympathy."

Elvin was hurrying with his preparations and was almost ready. "I'll give no quarter," he warned. "Each for himself, when I'm ready."

"Elvin," Lida spoke through her tears. "Is there not an iota of love in your heart. Must you persist in murder to satisfy your selfish pride. Can you not leave us to our-