ked
round some more till I was plum' wore out.

"When eight o'clock come I was waitin' where I said, and purty soon he
come along. As soon as he saw me standin' there in the shadder he bulged
up to me. He was mighty mad. He called me out of my name and said I
didn't have no claims on him--a whole lot more like that--and said he
didn't purpose to be bothered with me phonin' him and writin' him notes
and callin' on him for money. I said somethin' back, and then he made
like he was goin' to hit me with his fist. I'd had that pistol in my
hand all the time, holdin' it behind my skirt. And I pulled it and I
pointed it like I was goin' to shoot--jest to skeer him, though, and
make him do the right thing by me. I jest simply pointed it at
him--that's all. I didn't have no idea it would go off without you
pulled the hammer back first!

"Then it happened! It went off right in my hand. And he said to me: 'Now
you've done it!'--jest like that. He walked away from me about ten feet,
and started to lean up against a tree, and then he fell down right smack
on his face. And I grabbed up my baggage and run away. I wasn't sorry
about him. I ain't been sorry about him a minute since--ain't that
funny? But I was awful skeered!"

Rocking her body back and forth from the hips, she put her hands up to
her face. Major Stone stared at her, his mind in a twisting eddy of
confused thoughts. Perhaps it was the clearest possible betrayal of his
utter unfitness for his new vocation in life that not until that very
moment when the girl had halted her narrative did it come to him--and it
came then with a sudden jolt--that here he had one of those monumental
news stories for which young Gilfoil or young Webb would be willing to
barter his right arm and throw in an eye for good measure. It was a
scoop, as those young fellows had called it--an exclusive confession of
a big crime--a thing that would mean much to any paper and to any
reporter who brought it to his paper. It would transform a failure into
a conspicuous success. It would put more money into a pay envelope. And
he had it all! Sheer luck had brought it to him and flung it into his
lap.

Nor was he under any actual pledge of secrecy. This girl had told it to
him freely, of her own volition. It was not in the nature of her to keep
her secret. She had told it to him, a stranger; she would tell it to
other strangers--or else somebody would betray her. And surely this
sickly, slack-twisted li