"Sit here, Buck," said Kate, with perfect quiet. "Give me your hat.
There's nothing to fear. Now tell us."
"A whole day and a whole night," he said, "I been riding with the fear of him behind me. Kate, I ain't myself, and if I been sayin' things——"
"No matter. Only tell me how you made him follow you."
Buck Daniels swept his knuckles across his forehead, as though to rub out a horrible memory.
"Kate," he said in a voice which was hardly more than a whisper, "why did he follow Jim Silent?"
The doctor slipped into a chair opposite Buck Daniels and watched him with unbelieving eyes. When he had last seen Buck the man had seemed an army in himself; but now a shivering, unmanned coward sat before him. Byrne glanced at Kate Cumberland for explanation of the mysterious change. She, also, was transformed with horror, and she stared at Buck Daniels as at one already among the dead.
"Buck, you didn't—strike him?"
Buck Daniels nodded jerkily.
"I'll try to tell you straight from the beginning. I found Dan in Brownsville. I begged him to come back with me, but he wouldn't stir. This was why: A gunman had come to the town lookin' for trouble, and when he run acrost Dan he found plenty of it. No, don't look like that, Kate; it was self-defense, pure and simple—they didn't even arrest Dan for it. But this dyin' man's brother, Mac Strann, come down from the hills and sat beside Jerry Strann waitin' for him to go west before he started out to clean up on Dan. Yesterday evenin' Jerry was near dead and everybody in Brownsville was waitin' to see what would happen, because Dan wouldn't budge till Mac Strann had had his chance to get back at him. So I sent a feller ahead to fix a relay of hosses to Elkhead, because I made up my mind I was going to make Dan Barry chase me out of that town. I walked into the saloon where Dan was sittin'—braidin' a little horsehair strand—my God, Kate, think of him sittin' there doin' that with a hundred fellers standin' about waitin' for him to kill or be killed! I went up to him. I picked a fight, and then I slapped him—in the face."
The sweat started on Daniels' forehead at the thought.