Just as he emerged, stepping out a pace, a rifle cracked to his right,
and though he did not hear the bullet in passing, the thud of it came to
his ears when it struck a palm-trunk farther on.
He sprang back into the protection of the larger trees. Twice he had
exposed himself and been fired at, while he had failed to catch a single
glimpse of his antagonist. A slow anger began to burn in him. It was
deucedly unpleasant, he decided, this being peppered at; and nonsensical
as it really was, it was none the less deadly serious. There was no
avoiding the issue, no firing in the air and getting over with it as in
the old-fashioned duel. This mutual man-hunt must keep up until one got
the other. And if one neglected a chance to get the other, that
increased the other's chance to get him. There could be no false
sentiment about it. Tudor had been a cunning devil when he proposed this
sort of duel, Sheldon concluded, as he began to work along cautiously in
the direction of the last shot.
When he arrived at the spot, Tudor was gone, and only his foot-prints
remained, pointing out the course he had taken into the depths of the
plantation. Once, ten minutes later, he caught a glimpse of Tudor, a
hundred yards away, crossing the same avenue as himself but going in the
opposite direction.
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