“The little fool,” he told himself. “She seems to have been loaded for bear. Glad it was a thirty-two instead of a forty-five Colt. I didn’t think it was anything, just a bad scratch, after the first sting of it, but it feels like fire and brimstone now. It’s an infernal nuisance. Good Lord! Suppose she’d plugged herself instead of me. That would have been a fix for fair!”
This idea evidently horrified him. He had a vision of blood and tears and screams, of having to rush off to Carcajou to telegraph for the nearest doctor. Perhaps people would even have suspected him. He saw Madge with her big dark-rimmed eyes and that perfectly wonderful hair, lying dead or dying on the floor of his shack. It was utterly gruesome, unspeakable, and a strong shiver passed over him.
“But I wonder who the deuce she was going to shoot with that thing?” he finally asked himself. “Oh, she must be crazy, the poor little thing! It’s really too bad!”
“I’m glad you were not hurt. Rather unexpected, wasn’t it”
He then thought of what a fool he had been to give her back that gimcrack pistol. She probably had more shells. He must contrive to get them away from her. There was no saying what an insane person might do.
“I wish Stefan would turn up soon,” he cogitated. “I’d give a lot to find out what he knows about her. It was mighty funny his never stopping here for a minute.”