The crash of the automatic and the rattle of glass filled the room.
Jerry, blazing away at some fancied sound, had shattered the window.
Followed a long silence. Durand had changed his tactics and was
resolved to wait until his enemy grew restless and betrayed himself.
The delay became a test of moral stamina. Each man knew that death was
in that room lying in wait for him. The touch of a finger might send
it flying across the floor. Upon the mantel a clock ticked
maddeningly, the only sound to be heard.
The contest was not one of grit, but of that unflawed nerve which is so
much the result of perfect physical fitness. Clay's years of clean
life on the desert counted heavily now. He was master of himself,
though his mouth was dry as a whisper and there were goose quills on
his flesh.
But Durand, used to the fetid atmosphere of bar-rooms and to the soft
living of the great city, found his nerve beginning to crack under the
strain. Cold drops stood out on his forehead and his hands shook from
excitement and anxiety. What kind of a man was his enemy to lie there
in the black silence and not once give a sign of where he was, in spite
of crashing bullets? There was something in it hardly human. For the
first time in his life Jerry feared he was up against a better man.
Was it possible that he could have killed the fellow at the first shot?
The comfort of this thought whispered hope in the ear of the
ex-prize-fighter.
A chair crashed wildly.
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