Orlick must have heard this ominous, heavy breathing, for suddenly he raised on his elbow and looked.
"Aw--hell!" gasped Hatfield. "I 'lowed yo' wus daid--yo' wild hawg."
His voice carried a volume of reproach and disgust.
"Where yo'-all bin--hain't I got ez much right to cum back ez yo' hev?" snarled his weak, wounded foe.
"Naw, yo' hain't--yo' hain't never had no right on earth," growled Hatfield in tones that dwindled feebly to a malevolent hiss. "Traitors like yo' hain't hardly fittin' fo' hell--yo he'pt kill Cap Lutts, didn't yo'--eh?--didn't yo'--eh? An' yo' he'pt kill Mart Harper, didn't yo'--eh? An' yo' spied fer Sap and them fellers thet kilt Don Perry, didn't yo'--eh? An' thet hain't all, yo' bin a traitin' up Moonway fo' five year--I'm goin' t' finish yo' now--I'll finish yo'--jest wait til I git my breath an' I'll settle yo', shor'n hell."
Hatfield's head dropped down in the grass and he lay panting.
Orlick then struggled to his knees, impelled by some cryptic terror that imparted to him a measure of astounding vitality, and crawled away toward the deserted shack like a turtle. Hatfield, determined not to lose sight of him, crawled along tenaciously ten feet in the rear.
The ground under the chestnut tree and along the picket fence of the old shack had been stamped and worn bare by roving stock. When Orlick reached this bare spot, he tumbled flat and inert. In a few minutes more Hatfield came up, spent and heaving and unable to go another foot. He fell prone with his good arm stretched out and his clutching fingers within twelve inches of Orlick's throat. Orlick's body was in the shadow of the chestnut tree, but his head and neck were plainly visible in the moonlight. He turned his face and looked wearily at the impotent hand that was reaching for him--then his dull eyes followed the arm down to the dark visage with its smiling marble-white lips, and he wagged his head indifferently. Hatfield spoke again between teeth that gritted down upon the agony of his wounds:
"Wait 'til I rest a minute, an' I'll finish yo', shore--leastways, I plugged yo' gud--eh?"
"Yo' don't look so damn peert," he groaned back.
"Yo' didn't do hit--by Gad--yo' hit me in th' arm, an' hit was already busted--ha!--ha!--I didn't feel what yo' done," Hatfield laughed weakly, but derisively. "Leastways, yo' won't be a traitin' up in Moon again so soon. I plugged yo' gud, eh?" he ended jeeringly, venting a sound that in health would have mounted to a loud laugh, but which was only a faint gurgle in his throat.