on me," Dud said. "I got in after the fireworks were
over. Want to join Blister's posse now. You comin', Bob?"

"Not now," Dillon answered.

He was white to the lips. There was a fear in his mind that he might be
going to disgrace himself by getting sick. The nausea had not attacked
him until the shooting was over. He was much annoyed at himself, but the
picture of the lusty outlaws lying in the dust with the life stricken out
of them had been too much.

"All right. I'll be hustlin' along," Dud said, and went.

Bob leaned against the wall.

June looked at him with wise, understanding mother-eyes. "It was kinda
awful, wasn't it? Gave me a turn when I saw them lying there. Must have
been worse for you. Did you--hit ..?"

"No." He was humiliated at the confession. "I didn't fire a shot.
Couldn't, somehow. Everybody was blazin' away at 'em. That's the kind of
nerve I've got," he told her bitterly.

In her eyes the starlight flashed. "An' that's the kind I love. Oh, Bob,
I wouldn't want to think you'd killed either of those poor men, an' one
of them just a boy."

"Some one had to do it."

"Yes, but not you. And they didn't have to brag afterward about it, did
they? That's horrible. Everybody going around telling how they shot them.
As if it was something to be proud of. I'm so glad you're not in it. Let
the others have the glory if they want it."

He tried to be honest about it. "That's all very well, but they were a
bad lot. They didn't hesitate to kill. The town had to defend itself. No,
it was just that I'm such a--baby."

"You're not!" she protested indignantly. "I won't have you say it,
either."

His hungry eyes could not leave her, so slim and ardent, all fire and
flame. The sweetness of her energy, the grace of the delicate lifted
throat curve, the warmth and color of life in her, expressed a spirit
generous and fine. His heart sang within him. Out of a world of women she
was the one he wanted, the lance-straight mate his soul leaped out to
meet.

"There's no one like you in the world, June," he cried. "Nobody in all
the world."

She flashed at him eyes of alarm. A faint pink, such as flushes the sea
at dawn, waved into her cheeks and throat.

"I've got to go," she said hurriedly. "Mollie'll be expectin' me."

She was off, light-footed as Daphne, the rhythm of morning in her step.

All day she carried with her the treasure of his words and the look that
had gone with them. Did he think it? Did h