Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/301

Rh drunk; and he hasn't been steady for years. So I knew I still had the advantage; and Neal knew it, too; but he doesn't let on.

Thank you, Enoch,' he says. 'Now I'll kill you, of course; but while I'm doing it, maybe you'll hit me—no knowing; and I don't care to have a soft-nose bullet mushroom inside of me. Besides, wouldn't you rather have a clean hole—you've seen what the soft-noses do to the deer!' 'It's all we've got,' says I; but I guess he had me on that then. For I had seen the game hit by soft-nose bullets; and if I had to have him around with a bullet hole in him after I'd killed him, I wanted a clean bullet hole anyway—not the other kind. 'Have you got the other kind?' I said. 'I'll go to camp and get some,' he answered. I don't know what was in me; I had my nerve that day—for the first and only time in my life. I guess it was that, Steve, and it was a new feeling and I wanted to enjoy it. I knew there was some devilment in what he said; but I wanted to give him every chance—yes, I enjoyed giving the chance for more crookedness to him before I finished him; for I knew I was going to finish him then.

All right,' I said, 'I'll wait for you in the clearing by Bowton's mining shack'; for I saw in his eyes that he was afraid not to come back to me; and I watched him go, and went over to Bowton's and sat down with my back against the shanty, so he couldn't come up and shoot me from behind, and waited. It was dark and cloudy; he was gone four hours, and before he got back it began to snow. It got so that you couldn't see ten feet in that blizzard; but I