Their adventure had ended in tragedy both for her and for him. Bob sank down on a dry-goods box and put his twitching face in his hands. He had flung away both his own chance for happiness and hers. So far as he was concerned he was done for. He could never live down the horrible thing he had done.
He had been rather a frail youth, with very little confidence in himself. Above all else he had always admired strength and courage, the qualities in which he was most lacking. He had lived on the defensive, oppressed by a subconscious sense of inferiority. His actions had been conditioned by fear. Life at the charitable institution where he had been sent as a small child fostered this depression of the ego and its subjection to external circumstances. The manager of the home ruled by the rod. Bob had always lived in a sick dread of it. Only within the past few months had he begun to come into his own, a heritage of health and happiness.
Dud Hollister came to him out of Dolan’s saloon. “Say, fellow, where’s my gun?” he asked.
Bob looked up. “He—took it.”
“Do I lose my six-shooter?”
“I’ll fix it with you when I get the money to buy one.”
The boy looked so haggard, his face so filled with despair, that Dud was touched in spite of himself.
“Why in Mexico didn’t you give that bird a pill outa the gun?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m—no good,” Bob wailed.
“You said it right that time. I’ll be doggoned if I ever saw such a thing as a fellow lettin’ another guy walk off with his wife—when he ain’t been married hardly two hours yet. Say, what’s the matter with you anyhow? Why didn’t you take a fall outa him? All he could ’a’ done was beat you to death.”