“Why not?  You put up a good slick talk, Sinclair.  But you don’t win.  I ain’t going to give her up by no divorce.  I’m going to keep her.  I don’t love her enough to want her back, I hate her enough.  They’s only one way that I’d stop caring about—­stop fearing that she’d shame me.  And that’s by having her six feet underground.  But you, Sinclair, you need coin.  You’re footloose.  Suppose you was to take her and bring her to—­”

“Don’t!” cried Sinclair again.  “Don’t say it, Cartwright.  Think it over again.  Have mercy on her, man.  She could make some home happy.  Are you going to destroy that chance?”

“Say, what kind of talk is this?” asked the big man.

“Now,” said Sinclair, “look to your own rotten soul!”

The strength of Cartwright was cut away at the root.  The color was struck out of his face as by a mortal blow.  “What d’you mean?” he whispered.

“You don’t deserve a man’s chance, but I’m going to give it to you.  Go get your gun, Cartwright!”

Cartwright slunk back in his chair.  “Do you mean murder, Sinclair?”

“I mean a fair fight.”

“You’re a gunman.  You been raised and trained for gunfighting.  I wouldn’t have no chance!”

Sinclair controlled his scorn.  “Then I’ll fight left-handed.  I’m a right-handed man, Cartwright, and I’ll take you with my gun in my left hand.  That evens us up, I guess.”

“No, it don’t!”

But with the cry on his lips, the glance of Cartwright flickered past Sinclair.  He grew thoughtful, less flabby.  He seemed to be calculating his chances as his glance rested on the window.

“All right,” he whispered, a fearful eye on Sinclair, as if he feared the latter would change his mind.  “Gimme a fair break.”

“I’ll do it.”

Sinclair shifted his gun to his left hand and turned to look at the window which Cartwright had been watching with such intense interest.  He had not half turned, however, when a gun barked at his very ear, it seemed, a tongue of flame spat in from the window, there was a crash of glass, and the lamp was snuffed.  Some accurate shot had cut the burning wick out of the lamp with his bullet, so nicely placed that, though the lamp reeled, it did not fall.

24

With the spurt of flame, Sinclair leaped back until his shoulders grazed the wall.  He crouched beside the massive chest of drawers.  It might partially shelter him from fire from the window.

There fell one of those deadly breathing spaces of silence—­silence, except for the chattering of the lamp, as it steadied on the table and finally was still.  There was a light crunching noise from the opposite side of the room.  Cartwright had moved and put his foot on a fragment of the shattered chimney.

Sinclair studied the window.  It was a rectangle of dim light, but nothing showed in that frame.  He who had fired the shot must have crouched at once, or else have drawn to one side.  He waited with his gun poised.  Steps were sounding far away in the building, steps which approached rapidly.  Voices were calling.  Somewhere on the farther side of the room Cartwright must have found the best shelter he could, and Sinclair shrewdly guessed that it would be on the far side of the chest of drawers which faced him.