The first bullet struck the turf to his right with an angry buzz, sent a divot flying heavenward, and ricochetted with a smack against a tree. Before the raised head could drop to cover, Gonsalez fired; fired another shot to left and right, then, rising, raced for the shelter of the tree, and reached it in time to see three heads bobbing back to the road. He waited, covering the gap, but the people who drew the wounded man out of sight did not show themselves, and a minute later he saw the trolley moving swiftly down the by-road, and knew that danger was past.
The firing had attracted attention. He had not been back in the house a few minutes before a mounted policeman, his horse in a lather, came galloping up to the gate and dismounted. A neighbouring farm had heard the shots and telephoned to constabulary head-quarters. For half an hour the mounted policeman took notes, and by this time half the farmers in the neighbourhood, their guns under their arms, had assembled in Mirabelle’s parlour.
She had not seen as much of the redoubtable Leon as she could have wished, and when they had a few moments to themselves she seized the opportunity to tell him of the call which Lee had made that morning. Apparently he knew all about it, for he expressed no surprise, and was only embarrassed when she showed a personal interest in himself and his friends.
It was not a very usual experience for him, and he was rather annoyed with himself at this unexpected glimpse of enthusiasm and hero-worship, sane as it was, and based, as he realized, upon her keen sense of justice.
“I’m not so sure that we’ve been very admirable really,” he said. “But the difficulty is to produce at the moment a judgment which would be given from a distance of years. We have sacrificed everything which to most men would make life worth living, in our desire to see the scales held fairly.”
“You are not married, Mr. Gonsalez?”
He stared into the frank eyes.
“Married? Why, no,” he said, and she laughed.
“You talk as though that were a possibility that had never occurred to you.”
“It hasn’t,” he admitted. “By the very nature of our work we are debarred from that experience. And is it an offensive thing to say that I have never felt my singleness to be a deprivation?”