Virey now glowed with excitement, changing the man.
“Somehow that story haunted me,” he said. “I never heard one like it.... This prospector told how you confronted McKue in the street of a mining camp. In front of a gambling hell, or maybe it was a hotel. You yelled like a demon at McKue. He turned white as a sheet. He jerked his gun, began to shoot. But you bore a charmed life. His bullets did not hit you, or, if they did, to no purpose. You leaped upon him. His gun flew one way, his hat another.... Then—then you killed him with your hands!... Is that true?”
Adam nodded gloomily. The tale, told vividly by this seemingly galvanized Virey, was not pleasant. And the woman stood there, transfixed, with white face and tragic eyes.
“My God! You killed McKue by sheer strength—with your bare hands!... I had not looked at your hands. I see them now.... So McKue was your enemy?”
“No. I never saw him before that day,” replied Adam.
Virey slowly drew back wonderingly, yet with instinctive shrinking. Certain it was that his lips stiffened.
“Then why did you kill him?”
“He ill-treated a woman.”
Adam turned away as he replied. He did not choose then to show in his eyes the leaping thought that had been born of the memory and of Virey’s strange reaction. But he heard him draw a quick, sharp breath and step back. Then a silence ensued. Adam gazed up at the endless slope, at the millions of rocks, all apparently resting lightly in their pockets, ready to plunge down.
“So—so that was it,” spoke up Virey, evidently with effort. “I always wondered. Wild West sort of story, you know. Strange I should meet you.... Thanks for telling me. I gather it wasn’t pleasant for you.”