I am an outdoor man myself, but I have never seen the day when I was a match for Boris Bothwell at feats of strength. Unusually deep in the chest and wide of shoulder, with long, well-packed arms that gave his big, sinewy hands a tremendous grip, he was not in the least muscle-bound.
In my junior year I was the champion intercollegiate sprinter of the Pacific coast, but I have done a fifty with Bothwell for no less a stake than my life, and not gained two feet on the man.
At sight of his cousin he bowed ironically, with the most genial of mocking smiles. To that smile I despair of doing justice. It was not from the lips merely, nor yet was it from the good will in him, but had its birth apparently of some whimsical thought that for the moment lent his face a rare charm. A second bow was for me.
"Mr. John Sedgwick, I presume?"
"At your service, sir."
He removed his coat leisurely and hung it on the back of a chair.
"Just so. I've had the devil of a time running you down, but here we are at last. And all's well that ends well."
"You have business with me?" I asked curtly.
"Even at the risk of interrupting a tête-à-tête with the most charming young lady under heaven." His head dipped again with derisive courtesy toward Miss Wallace. "But I need detain you scarce a moment. You found this morning a paper I had the misfortune to lose. You will allow me to offer a thousand thanks for the very good care you have doubtless taken of it and will permit me to relieve you of it."
He was the very letter of urbanity, but beneath the velvet of his voice I felt the steel. It lay, too, in the glitter of the cold eyes that gimleted mine sharply.
Be sure I gave him back his smile and his insolent aplomb.
"Surely you are mistaken, Captain Bothwell. I recollect finding nothing that belongs to you."
"We'll waive that point. You found a paper," he answered quietly, drawing up a chair and seating himself astride it with his face to the back.
"I picked up a paper that fell from the hand of Miss Wallace."
"Exactly. I speak, of course, in the interest of my cousin. If you have returned it to her my purpose is served."
Impatient at our fencing, or afraid, perhaps, that I might be deceived by his suavity, the girl cut in tartly:
"You think you could rob me more successfully next time, Boris?"
His kindly toleration was a lesson in diplomacy.
"Fie, fie, Evie! A family difference of opinion. I think we must not trouble Mr. Sedgwick with our little diversions entre nous."
"Unfortunately, you are a day after the fair, Captain Bothwell. Miss Wallace has already done me the honor to consult me in an advisory capacity."
I let him have my declaration of war with the airiest manner in the world. My spirits were rising with the nearness of the battle, and I thought it would do our cause not the least harm in the world to let him see I was not a whit afraid to cross blades.
"Indeed! Then for the matter in hand I may consider you one of the family. I congratulate you, Evie. Shall we say a brother—or a cousin—or——"
"It isn't necessary to be a cad, Boris," she flung back hotly.
"Pardon me. You are right—neither necessary nor desirable. I offer regrets." Then of a sudden the apology went out of his face like the flame from a blown candle. He swung curtly around upon me. "Mr. Sedgwick, I must trouble you for the map."
I will be the last to deny that there was something compelling about the man. He sat there stroking his imperial, while the black eyes of the man held mine with a grip of steel. Masterful he looked, and masterful I found him to the last day of that deadly duel we fought out to a finish.
In that long moment of suspended animation when only our eyes lived—crossed and felt the temper of each other as with the edge of grinding rapiers—we took each the measure of his foe pretty accurately. If I held my own it was but barely. The best I could claim was a drawn battle.
"Regretfully I am compelled to decline your request."
"It is not a request but a demand. Come, sir, the map!" he repeated more harshly.
That he would somehow back his demand I did not for an instant doubt, though as to how I was still in the dark.
"Let me set you right, Captain Bothwell. This is a law office, in the city of San Francisco, United States of America. I am neither Tommy Atkins nor a Russian serf. Therefore, I again decline."
Coals of fire lay in his eyes.
"I—want—that—map!"
"So I gather, and as a child you often wanted the moon. But did you get it?" I inquired pleasantly.
"The map—the map!" He had not raised his voice a note, but I give you my word his eyes were devilish. He was a dangerous man in an ugly frame of mind.
"Certainly you are a man of one idea, captain. Show proof of ownership and I shall be glad to comply with your request."
"But certainly."
So quick was his motion that the revolver seemed to have leaped to his hand of its own accord.
"I give you my word, Mr. John Sedgwick of San Francisco, United States of America, that in the event you do not at once hand me that map I shall blow the top of your head off!"
In a measure I was prepared for this. I told myself that we were in the heart of a great city, in daylight, with the twentieth century setting of a fifteen-story office building. Were I to put my head out of the window a thousand hurrying people on Market Street would hear my call.
Yet I knew that I might as well be alone with him on a desert island for all the help that could reach me. I knew, too, that he was not bluffing. What he said he would do, that he would do.
My face can on occasion be wooden.
"Interesting, if true," I retorted coolly.
"And absolutely true. Make no mistake about that, Mr. Sedgwick."
His hand rested on the back of the chair for a support. My eyes looked straight into the blue barrel of his weapon. It was a ticklish moment. I congratulate myself that my nerves were in good condition. My fingers played a tattoo upon a sheet of paper on my desk. Beneath that page of office stationery lay the map he wanted.
"One moment, captain. This is not Russia. Have you considered that the freedom of my country carries with it disadvantages? You would probably be hanged by the neck till you were dead."
His mood had changed, but I knew he was not a whit less dangerous because the veneer of suave mockery masked the savagery of the Slav.
"Not at all. The unwritten law, my friend. I find you insulting my cousin and the hot blood in me boils. I avenge her. Regrettable, of course. Too hasty, perhaps. But—oh well, let bygones be bygones."
In one breath he had tried and acquitted himself.
"And do you think that I would agree to your accursed lies?" his cousin asked, white as new-fallen snow.
"Let us hope so. Otherwise I should have to base my action upon a construction less creditable to you. The point is that I shall not hesitate to carry out my promise. We can arrange the details later, my dear. Come, Mr. Sedgwick! Choose!"
"You coward!" flashed his cousin in a blaze of scorn.
"Not at all, dear Evie. All point of view, I assure you. Mr. Sedgwick has told you that I take a sporting chance of being scragged. I haven't the slightest ill feeling, but—I want what I want. Have you decided, sir?"
He was scarcely two yards from me, but neither his keen gaze nor the point of the automatic revolver wandered