Bard, standing erect, quite forgot to touch his weapon, but Sally had produced a ponderous forty-five with mysterious speed and now crouched behind a table with the gun poised.  Nash, bending low, ran forward to the fallen man.

“Nicked, but not done for,” he called.

“Thank God!” cried Sally, and the two joined Nash about the prostrate body.

That bullet had had very certain intentions, but by a freak of chance it had been deflected on the angle of the skull and merely ploughed a bloody furrow through the mat of hair from forehead to the back of the skull.  He was stunned, but hardly more seriously hurt than if he had been knocked down by a club.

“I’ve an idea,” said the Easterner calmly, “that I owe my life to you, Mr. Nash.”

“Let that drop,” answered the other.

“A quarter of an inch lower,” said the girl, who was examining the wound, “and Butch would have kissed the world good-bye.”

Not till then did the full horror of the thing dawn on Bard.  The girl was no more excited than one of her Eastern cousins would have been over a game of bridge, and the man in the most matter-of-fact manner, was slipping another cartridge into the cylinder of the revolver, which he then restored to the holster.

It still seemed incredible that the man could have drawn his gun and fired it in that flash of time.  He recalled his adventure with Butch earlier that evening and with Sandy Ferguson before; for the first time he realized what he had done and a cold horror possessed him like the man who has nerves to walk the tight rope across the chasm and faints when he looks back on the gorge from the safety of the other side.  The girl took command.

“Steve, run down to the marshal’s office; Deputy Glendin is there.”

She took the wet cloth and made a deft bandage for the head of Conklin.  With his shaggy hair covered, and all his face sagging with lines of weariness, the gun-fighter seemed no more than a middle-aged man asleep, worn out by trouble.

“Is there a doctor?” asked Bard anxiously.

“That ain’t a case for a doctor—­look here; you’re in a blue faint.  What is the matter?”

“I don’t know; I’m thinking of that quarter of an inch which would have meant the difference to poor Conklin.”

“‘Poor’ Conklin?  Why, you fish, he was sneakin’ in here to try his hand on you.  He found out he couldn’t get his gang into town, so he slipped in by himself.  He’ll get ten years for this—­and a thousand if they hold him up for the other things he’s done.”

“I know—­and this fellow Nash was as quiet as the strike of a snake.  If he’d been a fraction of a second slower I might be where Conklin is now.  I’ll never forget Nash for this.”

She said pointedly:  “No, he’s a bad one to forget; keep an eye on him.  You spoke of a snake—­that’s how smooth Steve is.”

“Remember your own motto, Miss Fortune.  He saved my life; therefore I must trust him.”