me."

Her words and her tone revealed the intensity of her dislike and the
depth of her distrust.

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, without resentment: "You are
ashamed already of saying that, aren't you?"

"No, I am not," she answered defiantly.

"Yes, you are. You know it isn't true. If you believed it you never
would have brought food here to save my life."

"I brought it to save some of my own people from possible death at
your hands--to prevent another fight--to see if you hadn't manhood
enough after being helped, to go away, when you were able to move,
peaceably. One cartridge might mean one life, dear to me."

"I know whose life you mean."

"You know nothing about what I mean."

"I know better than you know yourself. If I believed you, I shouldn't
respect you. Fear and mercy are two different things. If I thought you
were only afraid of me, I shouldn't think much of your aid. Listen--I
never took the life of any man except to defend my own----"

"No murderer that ever took anybody's life in this country ever said
anything but that."

"Don't class me with murderers."

"You are known from one end of the country to the other as a gunman."

He answered impassively: "Did these men who call me a gunman ever
tell you why I'm one?" She seemed in too hostile a mood to answer. "I
guess not," he went on. "Let me tell you now. The next time you hear
me called a gunman you can tell them."

"I won't listen," she exclaimed, restive.

"Yes, you will listen," he said quietly; "you shall hear every word.
My father brought sheep into the Peace River country. The cattlemen
picked on him to make an example of. He went out, unarmed, one night
to take care of the horses. My mother heard two shots. He didn't come
back. She went to look for him. He was lying under the corral gate
with a hole smashed through his jaw by a rifle-bullet that tore his
head half off." De Spain did not raise his voice nor did he hasten his
words. "I was born one night six months after that," he continued. "My
mother died that night. When a neighbor's wife took me from her arm
and wrapped me in a blanket, she saw I carried the face of my father
as my mother had seen it the night he was murdered. That," he said,
"is what made me a 'gunman.' Not whiskey--not women--not cards--just
what you've heard. And I'll tell you something else you may tell the
men that call me a gunman. The man that shot down my father at his
corral gate I haven't f