Once in his room, hair-trigger Overton pulls off the General's boot, which is full of blood.
“Not there!” says the General. “His bullet found me here”; and he throws open the black coat.
Dead-shot Dickinson's aim was better than his surmise. He struck that indicated third button; but, thanks to the strategy of hair-trigger Overton which prompted the voluminous coat, the button did not cover the General's heart. The deceived bullet has only broken two ribs and grazed the breastbone.
The surgeon is called; the wound is dressed and bandaged. He describes it as serious, and shakes his head.
“Still,” he observes, “you are more fortunate than Mr. Dickinson. He cannot live an hour.” As the man of probe and forceps is about to retire the General detains him.
“You are not to speak of my wound until we are back in Nashville.”
He of the probe and forceps bows assent. When he has left the room hair-trigger Overton asks:
The brow of the General grows cloudy with a reminiscent war frown.
“Have you forgotten those four shots inside the circle of a dollar, and that bullet-severed string? I want the braggart to die thinking he has missed a man at twelve paces.”
The two light pipes and hair-trigger Overton sends for his whisky. Once it has come he gives the General a stiff four fingers, and under the fiery spell of the liquor the color struggles into the pale hollow of his cheek.
He of the probe and forceps comes to the door.
“Gentlemen,” he says, palms outward with a sort of deprecatory gesture--“gentlemen, Mr. Dickinson is dead.”
The General knocks the ashes from his pipe. Then he crosses to the open window and looks out into the May sunshine. From over near the poplar wood drifts up the liquid whistle of a quail. Presently he returns to his seat and begins refilling his pipe.
“It speaks worlds for your will power, that you should have kept your feet after being hit so hard. Not one in ten thousand could have held himself together while he made that shot!” This is a marvelous burst of loquacity for hair-trigger Overton, who deals out words as some men deal out ducats.
“I was thinking on _her_, whom his slanderous tongue had hurt. I should have stood there till I killed him, though he had shot me through the heart!”