“I didn't know. I hadn't time to think. So I let fly. But I was so excited I likely missed you a mile.”
He took off his felt hat and examined with interest a bullet hole through the rim. “If it was a mile, I'd hate to have you miss me a hundred yards,” he commented, with a little ripple of laughter.
“I didn't! Did I? As near as that?” She caught her hands together in a sudden anguish for what might have been.
“Don't you care, ma'am. A miss is as good as a mile. It ain't the first time I've had my hat ventilated. I mentioned it, so you wouldn't get discouraged at your shooting. It's plenty good. Good enough to suit me. I wouldn't want it any better.”
“What about the man I wounded.” she asked apprehensively. “Is he—is it all right?”
“Haven't you heard?”
“Heard what?” He could see the terror in her eyes.
“How it all came out?”
He could not tell why he did it, any more than he could tell why he had attempted no denial to the sheriff of responsibility for the death of Faulkner, but as he looked at this girl he shifted the burden from her shoulders to his. “You got your man in the ankle. I had worse luck after you left. They buried mine.”
“Oh!” From her lips a little cry of pain forced itself. “It wasn't your fault. It was for us you did it. Oh, why did they attack us?”