runk. He was not
responsible. No, no. It is not that which matters. It was the other.
He left me--to go to his death. Had Pete not been waiting for him it
would have been just the same. Disaster! Death! Oh! can you not see?
It is the disaster which always follows me."

Her protest was not without its effect. So insistent was she on the
resulting tragedy that Buck found himself endeavoring to follow her
thought in spite of his own feelings. She was associating this
tragedy with herself--as part of her life, her fate.

But it was some moments before the man was sufficiently master of
himself--before he could detach his thought altogether from the human
feelings stirring him. The words sang on his ear-drums. "He--he kissed
me." They were flaming through his brain. They blurred every other
thought, and, for a time, left him incapable of lending her that
support he would so willingly give her. Finally, however, his better
nature had its way. He choked down his jealous fury, and strove to
find means of comforting her.

"It's all wrong," he cried, with a sudden force which claimed the
girl's attention, and, for the time at least, held her troubled
thought suspended. "How can this be your doing? Why for should it be a
curse on you because two fellers shoot each other up? They hated each
other because of you. Wal--that's natural. It's dead human. It's been
done before, an' I'm sure guessin' it'll be done again. It's not you.
It's--it's nature--human nature. Say, Miss Joan, you ain't got the
lessons of these hills right yet. Folks out here are diffrent to city
folks. That is, their ways of doin' the same things are diff'rent. We
feel the same--that's because we're made the same--but we act
diff'rent. If I'd bin around, I'd have shot Ike--with a whole heap of
pleasure. An' if I had, wher's the cuss on you? Kissin' a gal like
that can't be done around here."

"But Pete was not here. He didn't know."

Joan was quick to grasp the weakness of his argument.

"It don't matter a cent," cried Buck, his teeth clipping his words.
"He needed his med'cine--an' got it."

Joan sighed hopelessly.

"You don't understand, and--and I can't tell it you all. Sometimes I
feel I could kill myself. How can I help realizing the truth? It is
forced on me. I am a leper, a--a pariah."

The girl leant back on her cushions, and her whole despairing attitude
became an appeal to his manhood. The last vestige of Buck's jealousy
passed from him. He lo