A thought kept repeating itself to Duane, and it was that he might have spared himself concern through his imagining how awful it would be to kill a man.

He had no such feeling now.

He had rid the community of a drunken, bragging, quarrelsome cowboy.
When he came to the gate of his home and saw his uncle there with a mettlesome horse, saddled, with canteen, rope, and bags all in place, a subtle shock pervaded his spirit.

It had slipped his mind--the consequence of his act.

But sight of the horse and the look of his uncle recalled the fact that he must now become a fugitive.