sat there.
I remembered every detail; how still she lay in my arms; how white her
face looked as the distant lightning flashes revealed it to me; how her
hair brushed my cheek as I bent over her. I was using a wad of cotton
waste to polish the gun barrel, and I threw it into a corner, having the
insane notion that, in some way, the association of ideas came from that
bunch of waste. It--the waste--was grimy and anything but fragrant, as
different from the dark lock which the wind had blown against my face as
anything well could be, but the hurry with which I discarded it proves
my imbecility at that time. Confound the girl! she was a nuisance. I
wanted to forget her and her family, and the sulphurous personage to
whose care I had once consigned the head of the family apparently took a
characteristic delight in arranging matters so that I could not.

The shot gun was, at last, so spotless that even a pretense of further
cleaning was ridiculous. I held it level with my eye and squinted
through the barrels.

"Don't shoot," said a voice from the doorway; "I'll come down."

I lowered the gun, turned and looked. "Big Jim" Colton was standing
there, cigar in mouth, cap on the back of his head and both hands in his
pockets, exactly as he had appeared in that same doorway when he and I
first met. The expected had happened, part of it at least. He had come
to see me; the disagreeable interview I had foreseen was at hand.

He nodded and entered without waiting for an invitation.

"Morning," he said.

"Good morning," said I, guardedly. I wondered how he would begin the
conversation. Our previous meeting had ended almost in a fight. We had
been fighting by proxy ever since. I was prepared for more trouble,
for haughty condescension, for perfunctory apology, for almost anything
except what happened. His next remark might have been addressed to an
acquaintance upon whom he had casually dropped in for a friendly call.

"That's a good looking gun you've got there," he observed. "Let's see
it."

I was too astonished to answer. "Let's look at it," he repeated, holding
out his hand.

Mechanically I passed him the gun. He examined it as if he was used to
such things, broke it, snapped it shut, tried the locks with his thumb
and handed it back to me.

"Anything worth shooting around here?" he asked, pulling the armchair
toward him and sitting.

I think I did not let him see how astonished I was at his attitude. I
tried not to.