For I perpose to take this yer gentleman off your hands." He lifted his slumbrous eyes for the first time to the master, and at the same time put himself between him and Harrison.

"I perpose," he continued, "to take him at his word; I perpose ter give him a chance to answer with a gun.

And ez I reckon, by all accounts, there's no man yer ez hez a better right than ME, I perpose to be the man to put that question to him in the same way.

Et may not suit some gents," he continued slowly, facing an angry exclamation from the lank figure behind him, "ez would prefer to hev eleven men to take up THEIR private quo'lls, but even then I reckon that the man who is the most injured hez the right to the first say and that man's ME." With a careful deliberation that had a double significance to the malcontents, he handed his own rifle to the master and without looking at him continued: "I reckon, sir, you've seen that afore, but ef it ain't quite to your hand, any of those gents, I kalkilate, will be high-toned enuff to giv you the chyce o' theirs.

And there's no need o' trapsin' beyon' the township lines, to fix this yer affair; I perpose to do it in ten minutes in the brush yonder." Whatever might have been the feelings and intentions of the men around him, the precedence of McKinstry's right to the duello was a principle too deeply rooted in their traditions to deny; if any resistance to it had been contemplated by some of them, the fact that the master was now armed, and that Mr.McKinstry would quickly do battle at his side with a revolver in defence of his rights, checked any expression.