barn.

"I wish you'd seen that man's eyes! Then you'd know what I mean when I
say he gets hard, hard an' bitter sometimes. An' his voice--it was so
low an' soft you might 'a' thought he was putting a baby to sleep with
it! There was two of them boys, big an' ugly-mean, an' they both had
guns on, in sight. There was jus' one of Buck Thornton, an' I didn't
know yet he ever toted a gun. He uses his hands, mostly, I reckon, Buck
does. He didn't say much. He just got them two hands of his on Charley
Bedloe's neck, an' I thought he was goin' to break it sure. An' Charley
got flung clean out in the yard before the Kid had finished going for
his gun! You wouldn't believe a man could be that quick.

"Quick? It wasn't nothin' to his next play. I tell you the Kid's hand
was on the way to his gun an' Buck didn't have a gun _on_ him, you'd
have said. An' then he _did_ have a gun, an' John an' me didn't even see
where he got it, an' he didn't seem to be in a hurry, an' he'd shot
before the Kid could more'n pull his gun up!"

"He killed him?"

"He could have killed him just as easy as a man rolls a cigareet! There
wasn't six feet between 'em. Only men like Buck Thornton don't kill men
unless they got to, I guess. But he shot the Kid in the arm, takin' them
chances as cool as an icicle; an' when the Kid dropped his gun an' then
grabbed at it with his other hand, Buck shot him in the left arm the
same way. An' then, using his hands, he threw _him_ out. An' I don't
believe Charley Bedloe more'n got on his hands an' knees outside! An'
then somehow Buck has a gun in each hand, and has stepped outside, too.
And I reckon the Bedloe boys saw the same thing in his eyes me an' John
saw there when he come back in. Anyway, they got on their horses an' we
ain't seen hide nor hair of 'em since."

Miss Waverly sat very still, leaning forward a little, her eyes big and
bright upon the eyes of this other woman. The man, despite her calmer
judgment, appealed to her imagination....

"You'd think," Mrs. Smith went on, "that that man would be tired enough
for one day, wouldn't you? Ridin' all day, walking seven mile toting
that big saddle on his back; an' now he goes an' starts out to ride the
Lord knows how far. What do you suppose a man like him is made out'n?"

Smith answered her out of the corner of his mouth from which a slow curl
of smoke was mounting:

"Sand, mostly."

* * * * *

No, the girl could not sa