red grimly. "It gets me going
sometimes. Sometimes I get a hunch that I'll take all my friends and
go and camp right there on the Old Juan. Just go out there with guns
and hold her down, but that ain't the way it should be done. The
minute you show these wolves you're afraid they'll fly at your throat
in a pack. The thing to do is to look 'em in the eye and keep your gun
kind of handy, so."

He tapped the old pistol that he still wore under his coat and leaned
forward across her desk.

"Now tell me this," he said. "Knowing what you know now, does it seem
so plain criminal--what I did to that robber, McBain?"

Mary met his eyes and in spite of her the tears came as she read the
desperate longing in his glance. He was asking for justification after
those long months of silence, but his deed was abhorrent to her still.
She had shuddered when he had touched that heavy pistol whose shot had
snuffed out a man's life; and she shuddered when she thought of it,
when she saw his great hand and the keen eyes that had looked death at
McBain. And yet, now he asked it, it no longer seemed criminal, only
brutal and murderous--and violent. It was that which she feared in
him, much as she was won by his other qualities, his instinctive resort
to violence. But when he asked if she considered it plain criminal she
was forced to answer him:

"No!"

"Well, then, what is the reason you always keep away from me and look
like you didn't approve? Ain't a man got a right, if he's crowded too
far, to stand up and fight for his own? Would you think any better of
me if I'd quit in the pinch and let McBain get away with my mine?
Wasn't he just a plain robber, only without the nerve, hiring
gun-fighters to do the rough work? Why, Mary, I feel proud, every time
I think about it, that I went there and did what I did. I feel like a
man that has done a great duty and I can't stand it to have you
disapprove. When I killed McBain I served notice on everybody that no
man can steal from me, not even if he hides behind the law. And now,
with all this coming up, I want you to tell me I did right!"

He thrust out his big head and fixed her eyes fiercely, but she slowly
shook her head.

"No," she said, "I can never say that. I think there was another way."

"But I tried that before, when he robbed me of the Gunsight. My God,
you wouldn't have me go to law!"

"You didn't need to go to law," she answered, suddenly flaring up in
anger.