le memory.

"Kate," he said in a voice which was hardly more than a whisper, "why
did he follow Jim Silent?"

The doctor slipped into a chair opposite Buck Daniels and watched him
with unbelieving eyes. When he had last seen Buck the man had seemed an
army in himself; but now a shivering, unmanned coward sat before him.
Byrne glanced at Kate Cumberland for explanation of the mysterious
change. She, also, was transformed with horror, and she stared at Buck
Daniels as at one already among the dead.

"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 sho