For she remembered the story—­how Daniels had turned under the very nose of danger and done this insane thing in the saloon at Brownsville and in her despair she could think of no other appeal.

It was the very strangeness of it that gave it point.  Buck Daniels turned on his heel.

“It’s the last kindness I do you, Dan,” he said, with his broad back to them.  “But before you die you got to know why I’m killin’ you.  I’m going to roll one cigarette and smoke it and while I smoke it I’m goin’ to tell you the concentrated truth about your worthless self and when I’m done smokin’ I’m goin’ to turn around and drop you where you stand.  D’ye hear?”

“They’s no need of waitin’,” answered the soft voice of Barry.  “Talkin’ don’t mean much.”

But Kate Cumberland turned and faced him.  He was fairly a-quiver with eagerness and the hate welled and blazed and flickered in his eyes; his face was pale—­very pale—­and it seemed to her that she could make out in the pallor the print of the fingers of Buck Daniels and that blow those many days before.  And she feared him as she had never feared him before—­yet she blocked his way still with the outspread arms.

They could hear the crinkle of the cigarette paper as Buck rolled his smoke.

“No,” said Buck, his voice suddenly altered to an almost casual moderation, “talk don’t mean nothin’ to you.  Talk is human, and nothin’ human means nothin’ to you.  But I got to tell you why you ought to die, Barry.

“I started out this mornin’ hatin’ the ground you walked on, but now I see that they ain’t no use to hate you.  Is they any use hatin’ a mountain-lion that kills calves?  No, you don’t hate it, but you get a gun and trail it and shoot it down.  And that’s the way with you.”

They heard the scratch of his match.

“That’s the way with you.  I got my back to you right now because if I looked you in the eye I couldn’t let you live no more’n I could let a mountain-lion live.  I know you’re faster with your gun than I am and stronger than I am, and made to fight.  But I know I’m going to kill you.  You’ve done your work—­you’ve left hell on all sides of you—­it’s your time to die.  I know it!  You been lyin’ like a snake in the rocks with your poison ready for any man that walks past you.  Now your poison is about used up.”

He paused, and then when he spoke again there was a ring of exultation in his voice:  “I tell you, Dan, I don’t fear you, and I know that the bullet in this gun here on my hips is the one that’s goin’ to tear your heart out.  I know it!”

Something like a sob came from the lips of Dan Barry.  His hands moved out towards Buck Daniels as though he were plucking something from the empty air.

“You’ve said enough,” he said.  “You said plenty.  Now turn around and fight!”