dth time.

"Five in that last scrap! By gum! And you had six before?"

"Yes, uncle," replied Duane.

"Five and six. That makes eleven. By gum! A man's a man, to carry all
that lead. But, Buck, you could carry more. There's that nigger Edwards,
right here in Wellston. He's got a ton of bullets in him. Doesn't seem
to mind them none. And there's Cole Miller. I've seen him. Been a bad
man in his day. They say he packs twenty-three bullets. But he's bigger
than you--got more flesh.... Funny, wasn't it, Buck, about the
doctor only bein' able to cut one bullet out of you--that one in your
breastbone? It was a forty-one caliber, an unusual cartridge. I saw it,
and I wanted it, but Miss Longstreth wouldn't part with it. Buck, there
was a bullet left in one of Poggin's guns, and that bullet was the same
kind as the one cut out of you. By gum! Boy, it'd have killed you if
it'd stayed there."

"It would indeed, uncle," replied Duane, and the old, haunting, somber
mood returned.

But Duane was not often at the mercy of childish old hero-worshiping
Uncle Jim. Miss Longstreth was the only person who seemed to divine
Duane's gloomy mood, and when she was with him she warded off all
suggestion.

One afternoon, while she was there at the west window, a message came
for him. They read it together.

You have saved the ranger service to the Lone Star State

MACNELLEY.

Ray knelt beside him at the window, and he believed she meant to speak
then of the thing they had shunned. Her face was still white, but
sweeter now, warm with rich life beneath the marble; and her dark eyes
were still intent, still haunted by shadows, but no longer tragic.

"I'm glad for MacNelly's sake as well as the state's," said Duane.

She made no reply to that and seemed to be thinking deeply. Duane shrank
a little.

"The pain--Is it any worse to-day?" she asked, instantly.

"No; it's the same. It will always be the same. I'm full of lead, you
know. But I don't mind a little pain."

"Then--it's the old mood--the fear?" she whispered. "Tell me."

"Yes. It haunts me. I'll be well soon--able to go out. Then that--that
hell will come back!"

"No, no!" she said, with emotion.

"Some drunken cowboy, some fool with a gun, will hunt me out in every
town, wherever I go," he went on, miserably. "Buck Duane! To kill Buck
Duane!"

"Hush! Don't speak so. Listen. You remember that day in Val Verde,
when I came to you--plead with you not to meet Poggin? Oh, t