an' heard him talkin'
loud. Then he seen me, an' very impolite goes straight for his gun. He
oughtn't have tried to throw a gun on me--whatever his reason was. For
that's meetin' me on my own grounds. I've seen runnin' molasses that
was quicker 'n him. Now I didn't know who he was, visitor or friend
or relation of yours, though I seen he was a Mormon all over, an' I
couldn't get serious about shootin'. So I winged him--put a bullet
through his arm as he was pullin' at his gun. An' he dropped the
gun there, an' a little blood. I told him he'd introduced himself
sufficient, an' to please move out of my vicinity. An' he went."

Lassiter spoke with slow, cool, soothing voice, in which there was a
hint of levity, and his touch, as he continued to bathe her brow, was
gentle and steady. His impassive face, and the kind gray eyes, further
stilled her agitation.

"He drew on you first, and you deliberately shot to cripple him--you
wouldn't kill him--you--Lassiter?"

"That's about the size of it."

Jane kissed his hand.

All that was calm and cool about Lassiter instantly vanished.

"Don't do that! I won't stand it! An' I don't care a damn who that fat
party was."

He helped Jane to her feet and to a chair. Then with the wet scarf he
had used to bathe her face he wiped the blood from the stone flags and,
picking up the gun, he threw it upon a couch. With that he began to
pace the court, and his silver spurs jangled musically, and the great
gun-sheaths softly brushed against his leather chaps.

"So--it's true--what I heard him say?" Lassiter asked, presently halting
before her. "You made love to me--to bind my hands?"

"Yes," confessed Jane. It took all her woman's courage to meet the gray
storm of his glance.

"All these days that you've been so friendly an' like a pardner--all
these evenin's that have been so bewilderin' to me--your
beauty--an'--an' the way you looked an' came close to me--they were
woman's tricks to bind my hands?"

"Yes."

"An' your sweetness that seemed so natural, an' your throwin' little Fay
an' me so much together--to make me love the child--all that was for the
same reason?"

"Yes."

Lassiter flung his arms--a strange gesture for him.

"Mebbe it wasn't much in your Mormon thinkin', for you to play that
game. But to ring the child in--that was hellish!"

Jane's passionate, unheeding zeal began to loom darkly.

"Lassiter, whatever my intention in the beginning, Fay loves you
dearly-