By this time Andy was smiling gently to himself. His wrath had
dissolved, and he was humming pleasantly to himself as he began to pull
off the worn shoes of Buck's horse.




CHAPTER 2


Young Andrew Lanning lived in the small, hushed world of his own
thoughts. He neither loved nor hated the people around him. He simply
did not see them. His mother--it was from her that he inherited the
softer qualities of his mind and his face--had left him a little stock
of books. And though Andy was by no means a reader, he had at least
picked up that dangerous equipment of fiction which enables a man to
dodge reality and live in his dreams. Those dreams had as little as
possible to do with the daily routine of his life, and certainly the
handling of guns, which his uncle enforced upon him, was never a part of
the future as Andy saw it.

It was now the late afternoon; the alkali dust in the road was still in
a white light, but the temperature in the shop had dropped several
degrees. The horse of Buck Heath was shod, and Andy was laying his tools
away for the day when he heard the noise of an automobile with open
muffler coming down the street. He stepped to the door to watch, and at
that moment a big blue car trundled into view around the bend of the
road. The rear wheels struck a slide of sand and dust, and skidded; a
girl cried out; then the big machine gathered out of the cloud of dust,