Buck smiled--pure hatred made him smile--but it was mean, a mean and
sorry thing to shoot this man in the back, dog though he was; and now
that the moment had come a wave of sickening shame ran through Buck. No
one of his name had ever done that before; but this man and his people
had, and with their own lips they had framed palliation for him. What
was fair for one was fair for the other they always said. A poor man
couldn't fight money in the courts; and so they had shot from the brush,
and that was why they were rich now and Buck was poor--why his enemy was
safe at home, and he was out here, homeless, in the apple-tree.

Buck thought of all this, but it was no use. The shadow slouched
suddenly and disappeared; and Buck was glad. With a gritting oath
between his chattering teeth he pulled his pistol in and thrust one leg
down to swing from the tree--he would meet him face to face next day and
kill him like a man--and there he hung as rigid as though the cold had
suddenly turned him, blood, bones, and marrow, into ice.

The door had opened, and full in the firelight stood the girl who he had
heard was dead. He knew now how and why that word was sent him. And now
she who had been his sweetheart stood before him--the wife of the man he
meant to kill.

Her lips moved--he thought he could tell what she said: "Git up, Jim,
git up!" Then she went back.

A flame flared up within him now that must have come straight from the
devil's forge. Again the shadows played over the ceiling. His teeth
grated as he cocked his pistol, and pointed it down the beam of light
that shot into the heart of the apple-tree, and waited.