He ate his meal, washed down a good many cups of coffee, and treated himself to a cigar from the shelves. In striking the match his hands came upon the metal of the deputy’s badge and he snorted in plain disgust. “Shucks! Goin’ to be a gol-darned snooper. Dave Budd, I’m plumb ashamed of yore unhan’some behavior. Paradin’ around like a monkey on a stick.” It was in his mind to pin the thing inside his vest, but, having once taken the obligation, he found himself unable to hedge. He stepped down the porch and sauntered forward. The fires veered and danced in the late twilight; a fog sank over the treetops, bringing with it a clammy touch. For the most part the people had finished with their supper and were now lying around, spinning yarns and weaving dreams. It was a time for babies to be cooing in the wagons, half asleep; for the younger boys and girls to be out among the shadows playing hide and seek. One darted up to Budd and used the storekeeper’s vast bulk for a momentary refuge. A guitar strummed and a couple intoned a song about “Sweet Genevieve.” It struck directly to the hearts of all the middle-aged in that particular circle and voices died away. Budd moved on with a feeling of compassion. These were his people, his kind of men and women. Then he saw Bill squatting, Indian fashion, before a solitary little blaze. “No comp’ny?” said Budd. Bill nodded his head to the group ten yards beyond. “Sam’s there tellin’ the gol-darndest stories. I don’t need no comp’ny when I can listen in on them yarns.” Sam was, indeed, relaxing from his taciturnity. He sat with his feet crossed and illustrated his yarn with a jerky motion of his fingers and arms, greatly resembling Indian sign language. The girl sat across from him, her chin cupped in a palm, sometimes looking to him and sometimes away. Budd wondered if she had deliberately put her back to Bill. “’Spect so,” he thought, chuckling, and went on. His last glimpse was of her staring somberly into the fire. He paid his compliments here and there, answered a question or two and returned to the house. It was pretty late and he had worked rather hard. In ten minutes he had found his bed and was fast asleep. Budd’s manner of slumber was an inheritance from early range days. No matter how exhausted, he had trained himself to wake at the least untoward sound. So it was that an unusual commotion out among the wagons around midnight brought him up instantly. A moment later he was diving into his clothes upon hearing the repeated bark of a revolver. A man’s voice lashed out in the night, calling down all the wrath of heaven. A dog began to howl dismally and a woman screamed. Budd, forging to the porch, saw the glimmer of a newly lighted lantern and heard the mumble of a gathering crowd. He walked over to the scene where a dozen sleepy men had gathered. The lantern, held high, revealed an irate and whiskered citizen waving a gun and shouting: