"
"Buck," called Dan Barry, "so help me God, if you don't turn your face
to me--I'll shoot you through the back!"
"I knew," said the imperturbable Daniels, "that you'd come to that in
the end. You used to fight like a man, but now you're followin' your
instincts, and you fight like a huntin' wolf. Look at the brute that's
slinkin' up to me there! That's what you are. You kill for the sake of
killin'--like the beasts.
"If you was a man, could you treat me like you've done? Your damned cold
heart and your yaller eyes and all would of burned up in the barn the
other night--you and your wolf and your damned hoss. Why didn't I let
you burn? Because I was a fool. Because I still thought they was
something of the man in you. But I seen afterwards what you was, and I
rode off to get out of your way--to keep your hands from gettin' red
with my blood. And then you plan on follerin' me--damn you!--on
follerin' _me!_
"So that, Dan, is why I've come to put you out of the world--as I'm
goin' to do now! Once you hated to give pain, and if you hurt people it
was because you couldn't help it. But now you live on torturin' others.
Barry, pull your gun!"
And as he spoke, he whirled, the heavy revolver leaping into his hand.
Still Kate Cumberland could not close her eyes on the horror. She could
not even cry out; she was frozen.
But there was no report--no spurt of smoke--no form of a man stumbling
blindly towards death.
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