"
"Let that drop," answered the other.
"A quarter of an inch lower," said the girl, who was examining the
wound, "and Butch would have kissed the world good-bye."
Not till then did the full horror of the thing dawn on Bard. The girl
was no more excited than one of her Eastern cousins would have been over
a game of bridge, and the man in the most matter-of-fact manner, was
slipping another cartridge into the cylinder of the revolver, which he
then restored to the holster.
It still seemed incredible that the man could have drawn his gun and
fired it in that flash of time. He recalled his adventure with Butch
earlier that evening and with Sandy Ferguson before; for the first time
he realized what he had done and a cold horror possessed him like the
man who has nerves to walk the tight rope across the chasm and faints
when he looks back on the gorge from the safety of the other side. The
girl took command.
"Steve, run down to the marshal's office; Deputy Glendin is there."
She took the wet cloth and made a deft bandage for the head of Conklin.
With his shaggy hair covered, and all his face sagging with lines of
weariness, the gun-fighter seemed no more than a middle-aged man asleep,
worn out by trouble.
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