"Not much of a one," Mackenzie told him, rather wishing that the particulars might be reserved. "Your neck's black like somebody'd been chokin' you, and your face is bunged up some, too. Who done it?" "Do you know Swan Carlson?" Mackenzie inquired, turning slowly to the boy. "Swan Carlson?" Charley's face grew pale at the name; his eyes started in round amazement. "You couldn't never 'a' got away from Swan; he choked two fellers to death, one in each hand. No man in this country could whip one side of Swan." "Well, I got away from him, anyhow," said Mackenzie, in a manner that even the boy understood to be the end of the discussion. But Charley was not going to have it so. He jumped up and ran to meet Joan as she came from the wagon. "Mr. Mackenzie had a fight with Swan Carlson--that's what's the matter with his neck!" he said. There was unbounded admiration in the boy's voice, and exultation as if the distinction were his own. Here before his eyes was a man who had come to grips with Swan Carlson, and had escaped from his strangling hands to eat his breakfast with as much unconcern as if he had no more than been kicked by a mule. Joan came on a little quicker, excitement reflected in her lively eyes. Mackenzie was filling his pipe, which had gone through the fight in his pocket in miraculous safety--for which he was duly grateful--ashamed of his bruises, now that the talk of them had brought them to Joan's notice again. "I hope you killed him," she said, coming near, looking down on Mackenzie with full commendation; "he keeps his crazy wife chained up like a dog!" "I don't think he's dead, but I'd like to know for sure," Mackenzie returned, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground. "Nobody will ever say a word to you if you did kill him," Joan assured. "They'd all know he started it--he fusses with everybody." She sat on the ground near him, Charley posting himself a little in front, where he could admire and wonder over the might of a man who could break Swan Carlson's hold upon his throat and leave his house alive. Before them the long valley widened as it reached away, the sheep a dusty brown splotch in it, spread at their grazing, the sound of the lambs' wailing rising clear in the pastoral silence. "I stopped at Carlson's house after dark last night," Mackenzie explained, seeing that such explanation must be made, "and turned his wife loose. Carlson resented it when he came home. He said I'd have to fight him. But you're wrong when you believe what Carlson says about that woman; she isn't crazy, and never was." That seemed to be all the story, from the way he hastened it, and turned away from the vital point of interest. Joan touched his arm as he sat smoking, his speculative gaze on the sheep, his brows drawn as if in troubled thought. "What did you do when he said you had to fight him?" she inquired, her breath coming fast, her cheeks glowing. Mackenzie laughed shortly. "Why, I tried to get away," he said.