“Buck, you didn’t—­strike him?”

Buck Daniels nodded jerkily.

“I’ll try to tell you straight from the beginning.  I found Dan in Brownsville.  I begged him to come back with me, but he wouldn’t stir.  This was why:  A gunman had come to the town lookin’ for trouble, and when he run acrost Dan he found plenty of it.  No, don’t look like that, Kate; it was self-defense, pure and simple—­they didn’t even arrest Dan for it.  But this dyin’ man’s brother, Mac Strann, come down from the hills and sat beside Jerry Strann waitin’ for him to go west before he started out to clean up on Dan.  Yesterday evenin’ Jerry was near dead and everybody in Brownsville was waitin’ to see what would happen, because Dan wouldn’t budge till Mac Strann had had his chance to get back at him.  So I sent a feller ahead to fix a relay of hosses to Elkhead, because I made up my mind I was going to make Dan Barry chase me out of that town.  I walked into the saloon where Dan was sittin’—­braidin’ a little horsehair strand—­my God, Kate, think of him sittin’ there doin’ that with a hundred fellers standin’ about waitin’ for him to kill or be killed!  I went up to him.  I picked a fight, and then I slapped him—­in the face.”

The sweat started on Daniels’ forehead at the thought.

“But you’re still alive” cried Kate Cumberland.  “Had you handled his gun first?”

“No.  As soon as I hit him I turned my back to him and took a couple of steps away from him.”

“Oh, Buck, Buck!” she cried, her face lighting.  “You knew he wouldn’t shoot you in the back!”

“I didn’t know nothin’.  I couldn’t even think—­and my body was numb as a dead man’s all below the hips.  There I stood like I was chained to the floor—­you know how it is in a nightmare when something chases you and you can’t run?  That was the way with me.”

“Buck!  And he was sitting behind you—­while you stood there?”

“Ay, sitting there with my death sittin’ on his trigger finger.  But I knowed that if I showed the white feather, if I let him see me shake, he’d be out of his chair and on top of me.  No gun—­he don’t need nothin’ but his hands—­and what was in front of my eyes was a death like—­like Jim Silent’s!”

He squinted his eyes close and groaned.  Once more he roused himself.

“But I couldn’t move a foot without my knees bucklin’, so I takes out my makin’s and rolls a cigarette.  And while I was doin’ it I was prayin’ that my strength would come back to me before he come back to himself—­and started!”

“It was surprise that held him, Buck.  To think of you striking him—­you who have saved his life and fought for him like a blood-brother.  Oh, Buck, of all the men in the world you’re the bravest and the noblest!”