"It's all wrong," he cried, with a sudden force which claimed the girl's attention, and, for the time at least, held her troubled thought suspended. "How can this be your doing? Why for should it be a curse on you because two fellers shoot each other up? They hated each other because of you. Wal--that's natural. It's dead human. It's been done before, an' I'm sure guessin' it'll be done again. It's not you. It's--it's nature--human nature. Say, Miss Joan, you ain't got the lessons of these hills right yet. Folks out here are diffrent to city folks. That is, their ways of doin' the same things are diff'rent. We feel the same--that's because we're made the same--but we act diff'rent. If I'd bin around, I'd have shot Ike--with a whole heap of pleasure. An' if I had, wher's the cuss on you? Kissin' a gal like that can't be done around here."
"But Pete was not here. He didn't know."
Joan was quick to grasp the weakness of his argument.
"It don't matter a cent," cried Buck, his teeth clipping his words. "He needed his med'cine--an' got it."
Joan sighed hopelessly.
"You don't understand, and--and I can't tell it you all. Sometimes I feel I could kill myself. How can I help realizing the truth? It is forced on me. I am a leper, a--a pariah."
The girl leant back on her cushions, and her whole despairing attitude became an appeal to his manhood. The last vestige of Buck's jealousy passed from him. He longed to tell her all there was in his heart. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, and protect her from every shadow the whole wide world held for her. He longed to tell her of the love that was his, and how no power on earth could change it. But he did none of these things.
"The things you're callin' yourself don't sound wholesome," he said simply. "I can't see they fit in anyway. Guess they ain't natural."
Joan caught at the word.
"Natural!" she cried. "Is any of it natural?" She laughed hysterically.
Buck nodded.
"It's all natural," he said. "You've hit it. You don't need my word. Jest you ask the Padre. He'll give it you all. He'll tell you jest how notions can make a cuss of any life, an' how to get shut of sech notions. He's taught me, an' he'll teach you. I can't jest pass his words on. They don't git the same meaning when I say 'em. I ain't wise to that sort of thing. But ther's things I am wise to, and they're the things he's taught me. You're feeling mean, mean an' miser'ble, that makes me ter'ble mean to see. Say, Miss Joan, I ain't much handin' advice. I ain't got brain enough to hand that sort of thing around, but I'd sure ask you to say right here ther' ain't no cuss on your life, an' never was. You jest guess there's a cuss around chasin' glory at your expense. Wal, git right up, an' grit your teeth an' fight good. Don't sit around feeling mean. If you'd do that, I tell you that cuss'll hit the trail so quick you won't git time to see it, an' you'll bust yourself laffin' to think you ever tho't it was around your layout. An' before I done talkin' I'll ast you to remember that when menfolks git around insultin' a helpless gal, cuss or no cuss, he's goin' to git his med'cine good--an' from me."