He could not face this on the spur of the moment, so, shrugging his shoulders with an air of polite scepticism, he assumed a tone of good-natured raillery.
"Fifteen years?
Murder?
John Gale a murderer?
Why, that's almost--pardon me if I smile--I'm getting sleepy.

What proof have you ?" "Proof!" blazed the gambler.

"Proof! Ask Gaylord! Proof! Why, the woman he murdered was my wife!" It was Burrell's turn now to fall incoherent, and not only did his speech forsake him, but his thoughts went madly veering off into a wilderness where there was no trail, no light, no hope.

What kind of a coil was this?
What frightful bones were these he bared?
This man was Bennett! This was Necia's father! This man he hated, this man who was bad, whose name was a curse throughout the length and breadth of the West, was the father of the girl he loved! His head began to whirl, then the story of the trader came back to him, and he remembered who and what the bearer of these later tidings was.

He raised a pair of eyes that had become furious and bloodshot, and suddenly realized that the man before him, who persisted in saddling upon Gale this heinous crime, was the slayer of Necia's mother; for he did not doubt Gale's story for an instant.