“Not if I know it. I am going back to Medicine Bend to-night.” Lefever took off his hat and twirled it skilfully on one hand, humming softly the while. “John,” asked de Spain after a pause, “who is that girl that shot against me this afternoon?”
“That,” answered Lefever, thinking, shocked, of Jeffries’s words, “was Nan Morgan.”
“Who is she?”
“Just one of the Morgans; lives in the Gap with old Duke Morgan, her uncle; lived there as long as I can remember. Some shot, Henry.”
“How can she live in the Gap,” mused de Spain, “with an outfit like that?”
“Got nowhere else to live, I guess. I believe you’d better change your mind, Henry, and stay with us.”
“No,” returned de Spain meditatively, “I’m not going to stay. I’ve had glory enough out of this town for a while.” He picked up his hat and put it on. Lefever thought it well to make no response. He was charged with the maintenance and operation of the stage-line arsenal at Sleepy Cat, and spent many of his idle moments toying with the firearms. He busied himself now with the mechanism of a huge revolver––one that the stage-driver, Frank Elpaso, had wrecked on the head of a troublesome negro coming in from the mines. De Spain in turn took off his hat, poked the crown discontentedly, and, rising with a loss of amiability in his features and manner, walked out of the room.
The late sun was streaming down the full length of Main Street. The street was still filled with 17 loiterers who had spent the day at the fair, and lingered now in town in the vague hope of seeing a brawl or a fight before sundown––cattlemen and cowboys from the northern ranges, sheepmen from the Spider River country, small ranchers and irrigators from the Bear basin, who picked their steps carefully, and spoke with prudence in the presence of roisterers from the Spanish Sinks, and gunmen and gamblers from Calabasas and Morgan’s Gap. The Morgans themselves and their following were out to the last retainer.