“I have my fists,” replied James indignantly.

“Fists don’t count much against a revolver.”

“Well, I am going to try,” said James with emphasis.

“Good-by, then.  You are treating me shamefully, though.”

James stared at her in amazement.  She was actually weeping, tears were rolling over her cheeks.

“What do you mean?” said he.  “Don’t feel so badly.”

“You can’t be very quick-witted not to see.  If you should meet that man, and get killed, I should really be the one who killed you and not the man.”

“Why, no, you would not.”

The girl stamped her foot.  “Yes, I should, too,” said she, half-sobbing.  “You would not have been killed except for me.  You know you would not.”

She spoke as if she actually saw the young man dead before her, and was indignant because of it, and he burst into a peal of laughter.

“Laugh if you want to,” said she.  “It does not seem to me any laughing matter to go and get yourself killed by me, and my having that on my mind my whole life.  I think I should go mad.”  Her voice shook, an expression of horror came into her blue eyes.

James laughed again.  “Very well, then,” he said, “to oblige you I won’t get killed.”

He, in fact, began to consider that the day was waning, and what a wild-goose chase it would probably be for him to attempt to follow the man.  So again they walked on until they reached the main street of Westover.

Westover was a small village, rather smaller than Gresham.  They passed three gin-mills, a church, and a grocery store.  Then the girl stopped at the corner of a side street.  “My friend lives on this street,” said she.  “Thank you very much.  I don’t know what I should have done if you had not come.  Good-by!” She went so quickly that James was not at all sure that she heard his answering good-by.  He thought again how very handsome she was.  Then he began to wonder where she lived, and how she would get home from her friend’s house, if the friend had a brother who would escort her.  He wondered who her friends were to let a girl like that wander around alone in a State which had not the best reputation for safety.  He entertained the idea of waiting about until she left her friend’s house, then he considered the possible brother, and that the girl herself might resent it, and he kept on.  The western sky was putting on wonderful tints of cowslip and rose deepening into violet.  He began considering his own future again, relegating the girl to the background.  He must be nearing Alton, he thought.  After a three-mile stretch of farming country, he saw houses again.  Lights were gleaming out in the windows.  He heard wheels, and the regular trot of a horse behind him, then a mud-bespattered buggy passed him, a shabby buggy, but a strongly built one.  The team of horses was going at a good clip.  James stood on one side, but the team and buggy had no sooner passed than he heard a whoa! and a man’s face peered around the buggy wing, not at James, but at his medicine-case.  James could just discern the face, bearded and shadowy in the gathering gloom.  Then a voice came.  It shouted, one word, the expressive patois of the countryside, that word which may be at once a question and a salute, may express almost any emotion.  “Halloo!” said the voice.