"He is; and hark ye, Cutts, if you try to balk me here, I will wring your
neck off. And since I have told you so much, I will tell you this much
more--that I don't think there is the danger you count on; for I don't
mean to take Darrell's blood, and I believe he would not take mine."

"But there may be a struggle-and then?"

"Ay, if so, and then--man to man," replied Jasper, mutteringly.

Nothing more was said, but both spurred on their horses to a quicker
pace. The sparks flashed from the hoofs. Now through the moonlight, now
under shade of the boughs, scoured on the riders--Losely's broad chest
and marked countenance, once beautiful, now fearful, formidably defined
even under the shadows--his comrade's unsubstantial figure and goblin
features flitting vague even under the moonlight.

The town they had left came in sight, and by this time Cutts had resolved
on the course his prudence suggested to him. The discovery that, in the
proposed enterprise, Losely had a personal feeling of revenge to satisfy
had sufficed to decide the accomplice peremptorily to have nothing to do
with the affair. It was his rule to abstain from all transactions in
which fierce passions were engaged. And the quarrels between relations
or connections were especially those which his experience of human nature
told him brought risk upon all intermeddlers. But he saw that Jasper was
desperate; that the rage of the bravo might be easily turned on himself;
and therefore, since it was no use to argue, it would be discreet to
dissimulate. Accordingly, when they reached their inn, and were seated
over their brandy-and-water, Cutts resumed the conversation, appeared
gradually to yield to Jasper's reasonings, concerted with him the whole
plan for the next night's operations, and took care meanwhile to pass the