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 spite of you stoppin' my bleedin' and dressin' my arm, till I heard you give it to them fellers straight in the ear about my kid brother. That was when the light begun to come back to me."

"I'm glad you understood it, Gus. I don't suppose your brother was any saint or angel, but they didn't give him a square deal that day, and the cowards swore it off on me."

"That was what got me started wrong. I fell for their put-up job. No, the kid wasn't no saint, and I'm afraid he's gittin' a touch of for his sins, for he died with 'em on him as thick as mud on a hog. But he went clean compared to what I'd 'a' been if I'd 'a' throwed lead into your carcass that night, Doc."

"It's all right; you didn't, so we'll let it drop."

"Yes, I'm a regenerated man," Gus sighed, as if unloading himself of the past. "The light's come back to me; I've been born again."

"You mean you've got religion, Gus?" Hall was farther away from this fellow's drift than ever. He wished there were three miles between them, instead of less than three feet.

"I didn't get it, I guess, Doc, but kind of recovered it, as the feller said. I used to be a righteous man, Doc. I was a preacher before I went to—before I went off wrong."

"You don't tell me!"

"I was," Gus nodded solemnly, "and I was a damn good one, too. I'm goin' back to pasturin' as soon as I practice up a little longer on breakin' off this da— this infernal cussin' habit."

Hall looked at him again in that slantwise, quizzical