People in Pawnee Bend were discreet: when they heard shooting, they went the other way. Innocent bystanders were unknown among the sophisticated inhabitants of Pawnee Bend. Dunham had the scene to himself, with that sprawled figure lying face downward in the dust at the sidewalk edge.
Dunham felt as if the world had receded far away from him, leaving him desolate among strange things. He felt suddenly very old, and very lonely. What he had come there to do seemed to have been placed beyond the possibility of accomplishment by this tragedy that had descended upon him; the thread of his guidance seemed to be broken, leaving him groping. Everything was changed with the crack of a gun; everything was undone.
He did not feel any compassion for the fallen man nor any regret for the deed which necessity of his own defense had forced upon him. But that strange sense of loneliness pressed down so poignantly he felt himself as one bereaved.
Marshal Kellogg came hurrying from the Casino, and in his wake others trailed, making a clatter on the sidewalk planks. As quickly as Dunham had felt the recession of the world, he found himself surrounded
