Carver was conscious of a distaste for his surroundings, once the door had closed behind his companion. These carousals in town always palled on him in the end, giving way to the urge to straddle a horse and be off through the clean outdoors while the wind fanned the fumes from his head, but heretofore this state of mind had come about through gradual transition instead of descending upon him in a single second as had been the case to-day. He gravitated to the roulette wheel through force of habit and risked his handful of small coins, playing absently and placing his bets without care or consideration. Now just why, he wondered, had he been struck with a wild wish to buy things for a girl he had never glimpsed before in his life. He was not conscious that she had been shabbily clothed, for to save his immortal soul he could not have testified to the color, texture or state of preservation of one single item of her attire, but someway he felt that she was needing things and he wanted to see that these things were provided. He cashed in his few remaining chips and the banker handed him a single silver dollar in return. II Carver repaired to the shack to retrieve his horse and as he rode back through town he observed a group round the town well in the center of the wide main street. Mattison had laid aside his personal pursuits and had donned his official rôle of town marshal, in which capacity he was instructing Bart Lassiter in no uncertain terms as to the impropriety of watering his horse from the oaken bucket attached to the well rope. “Water him from the trough,” he ordered. “After all those Cherokee ponies have been dipping their noses in it?” Bart demanded. “Not this horse.” “That bucket is for folks,” the marshal patiently explained. “An’ this horse is folks,” Lassiter insisted. He continued to extend the brimming bucket horseward with his left hand. The spectators shifted, recalling that Mattison’s predecessor had fallen in a street fight near this same well. There was no ill-feeling between the two men, but neither of them would back down publicly under pressure. Carver glanced aside as a voice called Bart’s name. The girl of the Silver Dollar was peering from a window above a store, her gaze riveted on the group at the well. “Here’s two of my friends working up a grievance over well water,” Carver said, dropping from his horse. “Wherever did the pair of you acquire this sudden interest in it? I’m surprised at you.” “If this party’s a friend of yours, why you take him,” said Mattison. “He won’t mind me. Let him water his horse till the well goes dry.” “No such thing,” Lassiter gracefully declined. “I wouldn’t think of letting the critter slosh his muzzle in the town bucket.”