“Why, man,” cried Buck, “then what’s there to keep you here?  Jump on your hoss, and we’ll head North in ten minutes.”

“I will!” said Dan, full as eagerly.  “We’ll start full speed.”

“Come on, then.”

“Wait a minute!” said Dan, his voice growing suddenly cold.  “I been forgettin’ something.”

Buck Daniels turned and found his companion strangely changed.  There was a set expression of coldness about his face, and a chill glitter in his eyes.

“I got to wait here for something.”

“What’s that?”

“They’s a man in town that may want to see me.”

“Mac Strann!  I’ve heard about him.  Dan, are you goin’ to let Joe Cumberland die because you want to stay here and fight it out with a dirty cutthroat?”

“I don’t want to fight,” protested Barry.  “No, there ain’t nothin’ I like less than fightin’!”

Buck Daniels cursed softly and continuously to himself.

“Dan,” he said, “can you sit there and lie like that to me?  Ain’t I seen you in action?  Don’t I remember the way you trailed Jim Silent?  Don’t I remember how we all got down and prayed you to keep away from Jim?  Don’t I remember how you threw everything to hell so’s you could get your hands on Jim?  My God A’mighty, man, didn’t I see your face when you had your fingers in Silent’s throat?”

An expression of unutterable revulsion rippled over the face of Dan Barry.

“Stop!” he commanded softly, and raised his slender hand.  “Don’t keep on talkin’ about it.  It makes me sick—­all through.  Oh, Buck, they’s a tingle in the tips of my fingers still from the time I had ’em in his throat.  And it makes me feel unclean—­the sort of uncleanness that won’t wash out with no kind of soap and water.  Buck, I’d most rather die myself than fight a man!”

A vast amazement overspread the countenance of Buck Daniels as he listened to this outburst; it was as if he had heard a healthy man proclaim that he had no desire for bread and meat.  Something rose to his lips, but he swallowed it.

“Then it looks kind of simple to me,” he said.  “You hate fightin’.  This gent Mac Strann likes it; he lives on it; he don’t do nothing but wait from day to day hungerin’ for a scrap.  What’s the out?  Jest this!  You hop on your hoss and ride out with me.  Young Jerry Strann kicks out—­Mac Strann starts lookin’ for you—­he hears that you’ve beat it—­he goes off and forgets about you.  Ain’t that simple?”

The old uneasiness returned to the far-seeing eyes of Dan Barry.

“I dunno,” he said, “maybe——­”

Then he paused again.

“Have you got anything to say agin it?” urged Buck, arguing desperately.

“I dunno,” repeated Barry, confused, “except that I keep thinking what a terrible disappointment it’ll be to this Mac Strann when his brother dies and I ain’t around.”

Buck Daniels stared, blinked, and then burst into unmelodious laughter.  Satan trotted across the corral and raised his head above the fence, whinnying softly.  Barry turned his head and smiled up to the horse.