"But you're still alive!" cried Kate Cumberland. "Had you handled his gun first?"
"No. As soon as I hit him I turned my back to him and took a couple of steps away from him."
"Oh, Buck, Buck!" she cried, her face lighting. "You knew he wouldn't shoot you in the back!"
"I didn't know nothin'. I couldn't even think—and my body was numb as a dead man's all below the hips. There I stood like I was chained to the floor—you know how it is in a nightmare when something chases you and you can't run? That was the way with me."
"Buck! And he was sitting behind you—while you stood there?"
"Ay, sitting there with my death sittin' on his trigger finger. But I knowed that if I showed the white feather, if I let him see me shake, he'd be out of his chair and on top of me. No gun—he don't need nothin' but his hands—and what was in front of my eyes was a death like—like Jim Silent's!"
He squinted his eyes close and groaned. Once more he roused himself.
"But I couldn't move a foot without my knees bucklin', so I takes out my makin's and rolls a cigarette. And while I was doin' it I was prayin' that my strength would come back to me before he come back to himself—and started!"
"It was surprise that held him, Buck. To think of you striking him—you who have saved his life and fought for him like a blood-brother. Oh, Buck, of all the men in the world you're the bravest and the noblest!"
"They ain't nothin' in that brand of talk," growled Buck, reddening. "Anyway, at last I started for the door. It wasn't farther away than from here to the wall. Outside was my hoss, and a chance for livin'. But that door was a thousand years away, and a thousand times while I walked towards it I felt Dan's gun click and bang behind me and felt the lead go tearin' through me. And I didn't dare to hurry, because I knew that might wake Dan up. So finally I got to the doors and just as they was swingin' to behind me, I heard a sort of a moan behind me——"