Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/103

Rh face unreal as a dream, sometimes the face was filled with poetic beauty, sometimes the light gleamed on the scar and the sardonic smile, and then it was a face out of hell.

"You're going to get away from the mountain desert and go straight," said Allister in résumé.

"That's it." He saw that the outlaw was staring with a smile, half grim and half sad, into the shadows and far away.

"Lanning, let me tell you. You'll never get away."

"You don't understand," said Andrew. "Those fellows downstairs wouldn't have known what I was talking about, but I can explain to you. Allister, I don't like fighting. It—it makes me sick inside. It isn't easy to say, but I'll whisper it to you—Allister, I'm not a brave man!"

He waited to see the contempt come on the face of the famous leader, but there was nothing but grave attention.

"Why," he went on in a rush of confidence, "everybody in Martindale knows that I'm not a fighter. My uncle made me work with guns. He's a fighter. He wanted to make a fighter out of me. But I don't want to be one. I feel friendly toward people, Allister. I want them to like me. When they sneer at me it hurts me like knives. The only reason I ever wanted to do any fighting was just to get the respect of people. Those fellows downstairs think that I'm a sort of bad hombre. I'm not. I want to abide by the law. I want to play clean and straight. Why, Allister, when I turned over Buck Heath and saw his face, I nearly fainted, and then"

"Wait," cut in the other. "That was your first man. You didn't kill him, but you thought you had. You