Terence Hollis had gone out of the room and up the stairs like a man stunned¹ or walking in his sleep. Not until he stepped into the familiar room did the blood begin to return to his face, and with the warmth there was a growing sensation of uneasiness.  
Something was wrong. Something had to be righted. Gradually his mind cleared. The thing that was wrong was that the man who had killed his father was now under the same roof with him, had shaken his hand, had sat in bland² complacency and looked in his face and told of the butchery.
 
Butchery it was, according to Terry's standards. For the sake of the price on the head of the outlaw³, young Minter had shoved his rifle across a window sill, taken his aim, and with no risk to himself had shot down the wild rider. His heart stood up in his throat with revulsion at the thought of it. Murder, horrible, and cold-blooded, the more horrible because it was legal.
 
Something had to be done. What was it?
 
And when he turned, what he saw was the gun cabinet with a shimmer⁴ of light on the barrels. Then he knew. He selected his favorite Colt and drew it out. It was loaded, and the action in perfect condition. Many and many an hour he had practiced and blazed away hundreds of rounds of ammunition⁵ with it. It responded to his touch like a muscular part of his own body.
 
He shoved it under his coat, and walking down the stairs again the chill of the steel worked through to his flesh. He went back to the kitchen and called out Wu Chi. The latter came shuffling⁶ in his slippers⁷, nodding, grinning in anticipation⁸ of compliments.
 
"Wu," came the short demand, "can you keep your mouth shut and do what you're told to do?"
 
"Wu try," said the Chinaman, grave as a yellow image instantly.
 
"Then go to the living room and tell Mr. Gainor and Sheriff Minter that Mr. Harkness is waiting for them outside and wishes to see them on business of the most urgent nature. It will only be the matter of a moment. Now go. Gainor and the sheriff. Don't forget."
 
He received a scared glance, and then went out onto the veranda⁹ and sat down to wait.
 
That was the right way, he felt. His father would have called the sheriff to the door, in a similar situation, and after one brief challenge they would have gone for their guns. But there was another way, and that was the way of the Colbys. Their way was right. They lived like gentlemen, and, above all, they fought always like gentlemen.
 
Presently the screen door opened, squeaked¹⁰ twice, and then closed with a hum of the screen as it slammed. Steps approached him. He got up from the chair and faced them, Gainor and the sheriff. The sheriff had instinctively¹¹ put on his hat, like a man who does not understand the open air with an uncovered head. But Gainor was uncovered, and his white hair glimmered¹².
 
He was a tall, courtly old fellow. His ceremonious address had won him much political influence. Men said that Gainor was courteous¹³ to a dog, not because he respected the dog, but because he wanted to practice for a man. He had always the correct rejoinder, always did the right thing. He had a thin, stern face and a hawk¹⁴ nose that gave him a cast of ferocity in certain aspects.
 
It was to him that Terry addressed himself.
 
"Mr. Gainor," he said, "I'm sorry to have sent in a false message. But my business is very urgent, and I have a very particular reason for not wishing to have it known that I have called you out."
 
The moment he rose out of the chair and faced them, Gainor had stopped short. He was quite capable of fast thinking, and now his glance flickered¹⁵ from Terry to the sheriff and back again. It was plain that he had shrewd suspicions as to the purpose behind that call. The sheriff was merely confused. He flushed as much as his tanned-leather skin permitted. As for Terry, the moment his glance fell on the sheriff he felt his muscles jump into hard ridges¹⁶, and an almost uncontrollable desire to go at the throat of the other seized him. He quelled¹⁷ that desire and fought it back with a chill of fear.
 
"My father's blood working out!" he thought to himself.
 
And he fastened his attention on Mr. Gainor and tried to shut the picture of the sheriff out of his brain. But the desire to leap at the tall man was as consuming as the passion for water in the desert. And with a shudder¹⁸ of horror he found himself without a moral scruple¹⁹. Just behind the thin partition of his will power there was a raging fury to get at Joe Minter. He wanted to kill. He wanted to snuff that life out as the life of Black Jack²⁰ Hollis had been snuffed.
 
He excluded the sheriff deliberately²¹ from his attention and turned fully²² upon Gainor.
 
"Mr. Gainor, will you be kind enough to go over to that grove²³ of spruce where the three of us can talk without any danger of interruption?"
 
Of course, that speech revealed everything. Gainor stiffened²⁴ a little and the tuft of beard which ran down to a point on his chin quivered and jutted²⁵ out. The sheriff seemed to feel nothing more than a mild surprise and curiosity. And the three went silently, side by side, under the spruce. They were glorious trees, strong of trunk and nobly proportioned. Their tops were silver-bright in the sunshine. Through the lower branches the light was filtered through layer after layer of shadow, until on the ground there were only a few patches of light here and there, and these were no brighter than silver moonshine, and seemed to be without heat. Indeed, in the mild shadow among the trees lay the chill of the mountain air which seems to lurk²⁶ in covert²⁷ places waiting for the night.
 
It might have been this chill that made Terry button his coat closer about him and tremble a little as he entered the shadow. The great trunks shut out the world in a scattered²⁸ wall. There was a narrow opening here among the trees at the very center. The three were in a sort ............