“You are not,” declared Neale.  “Hurry up.  Finish your story.”

“Wal, the big bloke swaggered all over me, an’ I seen right off thet he didn’t have sense enough to be turned.  Then I got cold.  I always used to....  He says, ‘Are you goin’ to keep away from Ruby?’

“An’ I says, very polite, ‘I reckon not.’

“Then he throws hisself in shape, like he meant to leap over a hoss, an’ hollers, ‘Pull yer gun!’

“I asks, very innocent, ‘What for, mister?’

“An’ he bawls fer the crowd. ‘’Cause I’m a-goin’ to bore you, an’ I never kill a man till he goes fer his gun.’

“To thet I replies, more considerate:  ’But it ain’t fair.  You’d better get the fust shot.’

“Then the fool hollers, ‘Redhead!’

“Thet settled him.  I leaps over quick, slugged him one—­lefthanded.  He staggered, but he didn’t fall....  Then he straightens an’ goes fer his gun.”

Larry halted again.  He looked as if he had been insulted, and a bitter irony sat upon his lips.

“I seen, when he dropped, thet he never got his hand to his gun at all....  Jest as I’d reckoned....  Wal, what made me sick was that my bullet went through him an’ then some of them thin walls—­an’ hit a girl in another house.  She’s bad hurt....  They ought to have walls thet’d stop a bullet.”

Neale heard the same narrative from the lips of Ancliffe, and it differed only in the essential details of the cowboy’s consummate coolness.  Ancliffe, who was an eye-witness of the encounter, declared that drink or passion or bravado had no part in determining Larry’s conduct.  Ancliffe talked at length about the cowboy.  Evidently he had been struck with Larry’s singular manner and look and action.  Ancliffe had all an Englishman’s intelligent observing powers, and the conclusion he drew was that Larry had reacted to a situation familiar to him.

Neale took more credence in what Slingerland had told him at Medicine Bow.  That night Hough and then many other acquaintances halted Neale to gossip about Larry Reel King.

The cowboy had been recognized by Texans visiting Benton.  They were cattle barons and they did not speak freely of King until ready to depart from the town.  Larry’s right name was Fisher.  He had a brother—­a famous Texas outlaw called King Fisher.  Larry had always been Red Fisher, and when he left Texas he was on the way to become as famous as his brother.  Texas had never been too hot for Red until he killed a sheriff.  He was a born gun-fighter, and was well known on all the ranches from the Pan Handle to the Rio Grande.  He had many friends, he was a great horseman, a fine cowman.  He had never been notorious for bad habits or ugly temper.  Only he had an itch to throw a gun and he was unlucky in always running into trouble.  Trouble gravitated to him.  His red head was a target for abuse, and he was sensitive and dangerous because of that very thing.  Texas, the land of gunfighters, had seen few who were equal to him in cool nerve and keen eye and swift hand.