rry. He frowned, as one
bewildered.

"Think of her, Dan!" went on Buck Daniels. "Think of her wasting herself
on a no-good houn' dog like you--a no-good wild _wolf_! My God A'mighty,
she might of made some good man happy--some man with a soul and a
heart--but instead of that God sent you like a blast across her--you
with your damned soul of wind and your heart of stone! Think of it! When
you see what you been, Barry, I wonder you don't go out and take your
own gun and blow off your head."

"Buck," called Dan Barry, "so help me God, if you don't turn your face
to me--I'll shoot you through the back!"

"I knew," said the imperturbable Daniels, "that you'd come to that in
the end. You used to fight like a man, but now you're followin' your
instincts, and you fight like a huntin' wolf. Look at the brute that's
slinkin' up to me there! That's what you are. You kill for the sake of
killin'--like the beasts.

"If you was a man, could you treat me like you've done? Your damned cold
heart and your yaller eyes and all would of burned up in the barn the
other night--you and your wolf and your damned hoss. Why didn't I let
you burn? Because I was a fool. Because I still thought they was
something of the man in you. But I seen afterwards what you was, and I
rode off to get out of your way--to keep your hands from gettin' red
with my blood. And then you plan on follerin' me--damn you!--on
follerin' _me!_

"So that, Dan, is why I've come to put you out of the world--as I'm
goin' to do now! Once you hated to give pain, and if you hurt people it
was because you couldn't help it. But now you live on torturin' others.
Barry, pull your gun!"

And as he spoke, he whirled, the heavy revolver leaping into his hand.

Still Kate Cumberland could not close her eyes on the horror. She could
not even cry out; she was frozen.

But there was no report--no spurt of smoke--no form of a man stumbling
blindly towards death. Dan Barry stood with one hand pressed over his
eyes and the other dangled at his side, harmless, while he frowned in
bewilderment at the floor.

He said slowly, at length: "Buck, I kind of think you're right. They
ain't no use in me. I been rememberin', Buck, how you sent Kate to me
when I was sick."

There was a loud clatter; the revolver dropped from the hand of Buck
Daniels.

The musical voice of Dan Barry murmured again: "And I remember how you
stood up to Jim Silent, for my sake. Buck, what's come between us since