' down in her
throat--a bell ringin' away off far, you know, so's you only kind of
guess at it! But comin' back to you and Dan, Kate----"

It was in vain she plied the marshal with edibles. His tongue wagged
upon roller-bearings and knew no stopping. Moreover, the marshal had
spent some portion of his life in a boarding house and had mastered the
boarding-house art of talking while he ate.

"Comin' back to you and Dan, we was all of us sayin' that you and Dan
kind of had an eye for each other. I s'pose we was all wrong. You see,
that was back in the days before Dan busted loose. When he was about the
range most usually he was the quietest man I ever sat opposite to
barrin' one--and that was a feller that went west with a bum heart at
the chuck table! Ha, ha, ha!" The marshal's laughter boomed through the
big room as he recalled this delightful anecdote. He went on: "But after
that Jim Silent play we all changed our minds, some. D'you know, doc, I
was in Elkhead the night that Dan got our Lee Haines?"

"I've never heard of the episode," murmured the doctor.

"You ain't? Well, I be damned!--askin' your pardon, Kate----But you
sure ain't lived in these parts long! Which you wouldn't think one man
could ride into a whole town, go to the jail, knock out two guards that
was proved men, take the keys, unlock the irons off'n the man he wanted,
saddle a hoss, and ride through a whole town--full of folks that was
shootin' at him. Now, would you think that was possible?"

"Certainly not."

"And it _ain't_ possible, I'm here to state. But they was something
different about Dan Barry. D'you ever notice it, Kate?"

She was far past speech.

"No, I guess you never would have noticed it. You was livin' too close
to him all the time to see how different he was from other fellers.
Anyway, he done it. They say he got plugged while he was ridin' through
the lines and he bled all the way home, and he got there unconscious. Is
that right, Kate?"

He waited an instant and then accepted the silence as an affirmative.

"Funny thing about that, too. The place where he come to was Buck
Daniels' house. Well, Buck was one of Jim Silent's men, and they say
Buck had tried to plug Dan before that. But Dan let him go that time,
and when Buck seen Dan ride in all covered with blood he remembered that
favour and he kept Dan safe from Jim Silent and safe from the law until
Dan was well. I seen Buck this morning over to Rafferty's place,
and---