James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also,--it will
be
cheap louis vuitton
bags remembered,--on the night of his death, boasted that he was
game.
Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt
that held his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in
its holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle behind
the rock.
Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside
their hats. For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind
flashed the memory of that scene at
cheap
louis vuitton handbags the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the
distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the man
who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their acquaintance
came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge had met Sibyl in the
studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the sycamore grove; the night of
the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had strengthened the feeling of
antagonism which had marked their first
louis vuitton outlet meeting.
And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying that in his story
of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist, in that instant, knew
that this meeting was inevitable.
It was only for a moment that the two
men--who in their lives and characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood
regarding each other, each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the
death. Deliberately, they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their
heads towered the great cliff.
louis vuitton outlet A thousand
feet below were the tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. About them, on
every hand, the silent, mighty hills watched--the wild and lonely wilderness
waited.
As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers,
warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers, they
were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier, but Aaron
King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut, muscular
firmness.
They grappled. As two primitive men in
chanel bags
sale a savage age might have met, bare handed, they came together.
Locked in each other's arms, their limbs entwined, with set faces, tugging
muscles, straining sinews, and taut nerves they struggled. One moment they
crushed against the rocky wall of the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward
the edge of the ledge and hung over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts,
laboring breath, and clenched teeth they wrestled.