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“It isn’t that I’m afraid of you, either, Bert Clayton; you know it. You say you love her; I believe you. I love her, too. And Elizabeth–you have tried, and I have tried–and she told us both the same.

“God, man! I know how you feel. I’ve expected something like this a long time.” He drew his hand across his eyes, and turned away. “I’ve had murder in my heart when I saw you, and hated myself. It’s only in such places as this, where nothing happens to divert one’s mind, that people get like you and me, Bert. We brood and brood, and it’s love and insanity and a good deal of the animal mixed. Yes, you’re right. It’s between you and me, Bert,–but not to fight. One of us has got to leave–“

“It won’t be me,” Clayton quickly broke in. “I tell ye, I’d rather die, than leave.”

For a full minute Ellis steadily returned the other man’s fiery look, then went on as though there had been no interruption:

“–and the sooner we go the better. How do you want to settle it–shall we draw straws?”

“No, we’ll not draw straws. Go ef you’re afraid; but I won’t stir a step. I came to warn ye, or to fight ye if y’ wanted. Seein’ y’ won’t–good-night.”

Ellis stepped quickly in front of the door, and with the motion Clayton’s hand went to his knife.

“Sit down, man,” demanded Ellis, sternly. “We’re not savages. Let’s settle this matter in civilized fashion.”

They confronted each other for a moment, the muscles of Clayton’s face twitching an accompaniment to the nervous fingering of the buckhorn hilt; then he stepped up until they could have touched.

“What d’ y’ mean anyway?” he blazed. “Get out o’ my road.”

Ellis leaned against the door-bar without a word. The fire had burned down, and in the shadow his face had again the same expression of heaviness. The breathing of Clayton, swift and short, like one who struggles physically, painfully intensified the silence of that dimly lighted, log-bound room.

With his right hand Clayton drew his knife; he laid his left on the broad half-circle of wood that answered as a door handle.

“Open that door,” he demanded huskily, “or by God, I’ll stab ye!”

In the half-light the men faced each other, so near their breaths mingled. Twice Clayton tried to strike. The eyes of the other man held him powerless, and to save his life–even to satisfy a new, fierce hate–he could not stir. He stood a moment thus, then an animal-like frenzy, irresistible but impotent, seized him. He darted his head forward and spat in the heavy face so close to his own.

The unspeakable contempt of the insult shattered Bud Ellis’s self-control. Prompted by blind fury, the great fist of the man shot out, hammer-like, and Clayton crumpled at his feet. It was a blow that would have felled the proverbial ox; it was the counterpart of many other blows, plus berserker rage, that had split pine boards for sheer joy in the ability to do so. These thoughts came sluggishly to the inflamed brain, and Ellis all at once dropped to his knees beside the limp, prostrate figure.

He bent over Clayton, he who had once been his friend. He was scarcely apprehensive at first, and he called his name brusquely; then, as grim conviction grew, his appeals became frantic.

At last Ellis shrank away from the Thing upon the floor. He stared until his eyeballs burnt like fire. It would never, while time lasted, move again.

Horror unutterable fell upon him.

II

In the year 1807 there were confined in a common Western jail, amid a swarm of wretches of every degree of baseness, two men as unlike as storm and sunshine. One was charged with treason, the other with murder; conviction, in either case, meant death.

One was a man of middle age, an aristocrat born; a college graduate and a son of a college graduate; a man handsome of appearance, passionate and ambitious, who knew men’s natures as he knew their names. He had fought bravely for his country, and his counsels had helped mould the foundations of the new republic. Honored by his fellow-men, he had served brilliantly in such exalted positions as that of United States Senator, and Attorney General for the State of New York. On one occasion, only a single vote stood between him and the presidency.