"He walked right toward a muzzle, this Wingfield?" Jasper asked, his brows contracting.
"Why, yes. I told you at the start it was all most preposterous," she answered.
"And he was not afraid of death—this Wingfield!" Jasper repeated.
He was looking away from her. The contraction of his brows had become a scowl of mystification.
"Why do you always speak of him as 'this Wingfield,'" she demanded, "as if the town were full of Wingfields and he was a particular one?"
He looked around quickly, his features working in a kind of confusion.
Then he smiled.
"I was thinking of the whistle," he explained. "Well, we'll call him this Sir Chaps, this Señor Don't Care, or whatever you please. As for his walking into the gun, there is nothing remarkable in that. You draw on a man. You expect him to throw up his hands or reach for his gun. He does nothing but smile right along the level of the sight into your eyes. It was disturbing to Pete's sense of etiquette on such occasions. It threw him off. There are similar instances in history. A soldier once put a musket at Bonaparte's head. Some of Caesar's legionaries once pressed their swords at his breast. Such old hands in human psychology had the presence of mind to smile. And the history of the West is full of examples which have not been recorded. Go on, Mary!"
"Ignacio says he has a devil in him," she added.
"That little Indian has a lot of primitive race wisdom. Probably he is right," her father said soberly.
"It explains what followed," she proceeded.