between them which, if not love, is involuntarily considered by each something that way.  There was a struggle in his mind between the instinct to be honorable and straight-forward and fair, and to do what was right, and the impulse, on the other hand, to refuse anything demanded by an assailant.  But the would-be murderer was not a murderer, after all.  He was only a temporary lunatic whom Harlson himself had driven mad.  That was the just way to look at it.  As for Jenny, she would not suffer much.  There had not been time enough.  Not in a day does a man or woman have that effect produced upon the heart which lasts forever.  So, were he to disappear from the affair, nothing very serious, nothing affecting materially the whole of any life would follow.  The odds were against him, or rather against the worst side of him, in the reflection.

He acted promptly.  “I don’t know about it,” he said; “I’m puzzled.  I don’t care much.  I don’t know just where I stand, anyhow.  I want to be decent, but it seems to me I have some rights; I’m all tangled up.  I don’t think you imagine I am afraid—­I wasn’t when I was a little boy in school with you as a bigger one.  You know that—­and I’m not now.  But that doesn’t count.  I’ve been studying over a lot of things, and I don’t know what to do.  I think you may be right, and that I have been all wrong.  I give it up.  But I do know that a fellow can’t make any mistake if he tries to do what is right, and, in figuring out the thing, takes the side that seems to be against him.  He can fight, he can do anything better after he feels that he has done that.  Hold on.”

Woodell stopped, wonderingly.  Harlson unbuckled the strap about the man’s hands and threw it into the bushes at the roadside.

The farmer straightened himself up, reached out his arms, clutched his palms together, and looked at the other man.  Harlson spoke bluntly.

“Yes, I know you want to try it again.  But, as I feel now, it could only end one way.  I don’t mind.  I only wanted to loose you before I say what I wanted to say, so that you wouldn’t think I was making terms on my own account.”

“Go on,” said Woodell, gruffly, still stretching his arms.

“Well, it is just this.  I don’t think I’ve been doing the right thing.  I am going to leave Jenny Bierce to you.  She will not care much, and it will be all right in a little time.  That is all.  No, not quite!  You tried to kill me.  Maybe I would have been as big a fool, just such a crazy, jealous man as you, if things had been the other way.  I don’t know.  But I do know this, that your coming here to-night, except that it has made me think, has nothing to do with what I have made up my mind to.  Here we are in the road.  I don’t want to sleep uneasily in the barn.  You tried to kill me.  I have tried to decide on what is right, and I will do it.  Now, I want it settled with you.  Here I am!  Do you want to fight?”