a question somebody asked me, and pretty soon here
came Stuart. He grinned at me, but this didn't make me want to kill him.
Do they hear me down stairs?"

"Go on, for God's sake!" I urged. "Why did you kill him? Didn't you
know----"

"I knew everything, Bill. But I didn't want to kill him. I turned away,
and walked up the road, and he came along after me on his horse. And
when we were some distance away he made a slighting remark about Millie.
I wheeled around and he snatched out a pistol and pointed it at me. I
hadn't a thing, and there he was on a horse and with a pistol pointed at
me. There was not a stone, nothing within reach. I was cool, I had
sense, and I told him that he might have his fun, but that I would see
him again. And when he had cursed me and abused me as much as he liked
he rode away, leaving me standing there. I ran over to Parker's and told
him that I wanted a pistol to shoot a dog with, and he gave it to me.
Then I went back to the road and waited. He had gone over to the
General's, I thought, and I knew that he would come back that way. I
would make him swallow his words--I knew that he didn't mean what he
said about Millie--knew that he simply wanted to stir me up and have an
excuse to kill me. So I waited in the road not far from Doc Etheredge's,
waited a long time and at last I heard some one coming on a horse. I
didn't hide; I stood in the middle of the road. A man came up, but it
wasn't him; it was Etheredge. He spoke to me, asked me good-naturedly
why I was standing there, and I told him that I was waiting for a dog
that I wanted to kill. He turned into his gate, a short distance off,
and I stood there. After a while I heard another horse, and I knew his
gait--single-foot. It was Stuart. He was singing and he didn't appear to
see me until he was almost on me. His horse shied. 'Who is that?' he
asked, and I told him. 'And you are going to take back what you said,' I
remarked as quietly as I could, 'or I'm going to kill you right here.'
He didn't say a word--he snatched at his pistol and then I fired, and he
fell forward on his horse's neck. The horse jumped and I sprang forward
and caught the body and eased it to the ground--stretched it in the road
and left it. But I went up to Etheredge's house and hallooed, and when
he answered I told him that the dog had come and that his name was Dan
Stuart, and that he would find him lying in the road. I heard him shout
something, but I didn't wait for