To a pleasant remark of the bride he responded, but no sound issued,
then breathing heavily into his larynx, the reply roared upon them
like a burst of thunder, seriously threatening the gravity of the
meal. He retired abruptly into moist and self-conscious silence,
fearful of feasting his eyes on this disturbing loveliness.

As soon as compatible with decency, he slipped back to his bunk in
the shed behind, and lay staring into the darkness, picturing the
amazing occurrences of the evening. At the memory of her level
glances he fell a-tremble and sighed ecstatically, prickling with a
new, strange emotion. He lay till far into the night, wakeful and
absorbed. He was able, to grasp the fact but dimly that all this
dazzling perfection was for one man. Were it not manifestly
impossible he supposed other men in other lands knew other ladies as
beautiful, and it furthermore grew upon him blackly, in the thick
gloom, that in all this world of womanly sweetness and beauty, no
modicum of it was for the misshapen dwarf of the Bar X outfit. All
his life he had fought furiously to uphold the empty shell of his
dignity in the eyes of his comrades, yet always morbidly conscious of
the difference in his body. Whisky had been his solace, his
sweetheart. It changed him, raised and beatified him into the
likeness of other men, and now, as he pondered, he was aware of a
consuming thirst engendered by the heat of his earlier emotions.
Undoubtedly it must be quenched.

He rose and stole quietly out into the big front room. Perhaps the
years of free life in the open had bred a suspicion of walls, perhaps
he felt his conduct would not brook discovery, perhaps habit,
prompted him to take the two heavy Colts from their holsters and
thrust them inside his trousers band.