"She—she threw a knife at me," said Nate Samson.
"It's stuck in the shelf behind you." Thus the marshal with indifference.
"That's assault with a deadly weapon," averred Nate, freeing the deadly weapon and putting it carefully out of reach of other possibly petulant customers. "Why didn't you arrest her, Red?"
"She missed you, Nate. She'd have had to cut you some before I could arrest her. 'Threaten or Inflict a wound,' the statutes say, and she didn't do either. No."
"But she might have," grumbled the discomforted Nate. "If I hadn't dodged, she'd have split my head open."
"That's so," the marshal assented with relish. "Do you know, Nate, I'm glad it happened. I dunno that I'd have thought of it if I hadn't seen her buzz that knife at you."
"Thought of what?" fretted Nate, stopping to gather up the parcels that had cascaded over his head to the floor. "What you talking about, anyway?"
The marshal settled himself to elucidate. "I know that Bill had cut you out with Hazel and——"
"No such thing," Nate contradicted sharply, with a reddening cheek. "No such thing. You got it all wrong, Red. I stopped going to see Hazel because it was so far and all. I—uh—I got tired ridin' all that distance."
"All right," the marshal gave in pacifically, "you stopped goin' to see her because it was so far from town. Bill started going to see her, and he went to see her right smart for a spell."