Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/305

Rh hammer struck his good shell and the bullet banged through the wall behind me. But then I gave him my fourth shot—straight; for his hammer didn't even click again. Besides, I heard him fall. I waited a long time to see if he moved; but he didn't. I threw the bad cartridge out of my gun, and went over and felt for him. I got the matchbox and lit matches and saw he was dead; and I saw, too, how he had got in that corner without me hearing. He was in his stockings; he had taken off his shoes and sneaked from the corner where I first shot for him, so he would have killed me if I hadn't seen to it that he had the bad shells he fixed for me. It struck a sort of a shiver to me to see that—to see him tricky and fighting foul to the end. But that was like Neal, wasn't it, Steve? That was like him, clear to the last, looking for any unfair advantage he could take? That's how and why I killed Neal, Steve—and this time it was justice, Steve! For Neal had it coming! Steve, Steve! didn't Neal have it coming?"

He stretched out his hands to his old friend, the brother of the man he had killed, in pitiable appeal; and as the other rose, with his face working with indecision and emotion, Trant saw that the question he had asked and the answer that was to be given were for those two alone, and he went out and left them.

The psychologist waited at the top of the high stone entrance steps for several minutes before Sheppard joined him and stood drinking in great breaths of the cold December air as though by its freshness to restore his nervous balance.

"I do not know what your decision is, Mr.