"I'm empty, Hal," he answered. "Does that answer you? The crooks are against me, the law is against me. Well, they'll work together to keep me busy. I don't want any man's help. I'm a bad man, Hal. I know it. I don't deny it. I don't ask any quarter." It was rather a desperate speech--rather a boyish one. At any rate the marshal smiled, and a curious flush came in Andrew's face. "Will you let me tell you a story, Andrew? It's a story about yourself." He went on: "You were a kid in Martindale. Husky, good-natured, a little sleepy, with touchy nerves, not very confident in yourself. I've known other kids like you, but none just the same type. "You weren't waked up. You see? The pinch was bound to come in a town where every man wore his gun. You were bound to face a show-down. There were equal chances. Either you'd back down or else you'd give the man a beating. If the first thing happened, you'd have been a coward the rest of your life. But the other thing was what happened, and it gave you a touch of the iron that a man needs in his blood. Iron dust, Andy, iron dust! "You had bad luck, you think. You thought you'd killed a man; it made you think you were a born murderer. You began to look back to the old stories about the Lannings--a wild crew of men. You thought that blood was what was a-showing in you. "Partly you were right, partly you were wrong. There was a new strength in you. You thought it was the strength of a desperado. Do you know what the change was? It was the change from boyhood to manhood. That was all--a sort of chemical change, Andy. "See what happened: You had your first fight and you saw your first girl, all about the same time. But here's what puzzles me: according to the way I figure it, you must have seen the girl first. But it seems that you didn't. Will you tell me?" "We won't talk about the girl," said Andrew in a heavy voice. "Tut, tut! Won't we? Boy, we're going to do more talking about her than about anything else. Well, anyway, you saw the girl, fell in love with her, went away. Met up with a posse which my brother happened to lead. Killed your man. Went on. Rode like the wind. Went through about a hundred adventures in as many days. And little by little you were fixing in your ways. You were changing from boyhood into manhood, and you were changing without any authority over you. Most youngsters have their fathers over them when that change comes. All of 'em have the law. But you didn't have either. And the result was that you changed from a boy into a man, and a free man. You hear me? You found that you could do what you wanted to do; nothing could hold you back except one thing--the girl!" Andrew caught his breath, but the marshal would not let him speak.