Jose did not sit down beside Dade, but he came a little closer, “Why do I want to fight to the death?  I will tell you, Senor; I am not ashamed.  Since I was a child I have loved that senorita whom I will not name to you.  Only last Christmas time the senora, her mother, said I must wait but a year longer till she was a little older.  They would keep their child a little longer, and truly her heart is the heart of a child.  But she knew; and I think she waited also and was happy.  But look you, Senor!  Then comes a stranger and steals—­

“Ah, you ask me why must I fight to the death?  Senor, you are a man; perchance you have loved—­for of a truth I see sometimes the sadness in your eyes.  You know that I must fight thus.  You know that to kill that blue-eyed one is all there is left to do.  Me, I could have put him out of the way before now, for there are many knives ready to do me the service.  Kill him I shall, Senor; but it shall be in fight; and if the senorita sees—­good.  She shall know then that at least it is not a coward or a weakling who loves her.  Do you ask why—­”

Dade’s hands went out, dismissing the question.  “No, I don’t ask another blamed thing.  Go ahead and fight.  Fight to kill, if that’s the only thing that will satisfy you.  You two aren’t the first to lock horns over a woman.  Jack seems just as keen for it as you are, so I don’t reckon there’s any stopping either one of you.  But it does seem a pity!”

“Why does it seem a pity?” Jose’s tone was insistent.

“It seems a pity,” Dade explained doggedly, “to see two fine fellows like you and Jack trying to kill each other for a girl—­that isn’t worth the life of either one of you!”

In two steps Jose confronted him, his hand lifted to strike.  Dade, looking up at him, flicked the ashes from his cigarette with his forefinger, but that was the only move he made.  Jose’s hand trembled and came down harmlessly by his side.

“I was mistaken,” he said, smiling queerly.  “You have never loved any woman, Senor; and I think the sadness I have seen in your eyes is for yourself, that life has cheated you so.  If you had known love, you could never have said that.  Love, Senor, is worth everything a man has to give—­even his life.  You would know that, if you had ever loved.”  He waited a moment, closed his teeth upon further words, turned abruptly on his heel and went away into the fog-darkened night.

Dade, with a slight curl to his lips that did not look quite like a smile, stared into the fire, where the embers were growing charred for half their length, and the flames were waving wearily and shrinking back to the coals, and the coals themselves were filmed with gray.  The cigarette went cold and clammy in his fingers, and in his eyes was that sadness of which Jose had spoken; and something else besides.