He suddenly had his attention caught. She had said the name of the banana station—but there had been no dying person there: no sign of violence, unless silence and desertion were signs. He had assumed the mother had been taken ill, but it might be something worse—and he imagined that stupid Captain Fellows taking down his gun, presenting himself clumsily armed to a man whose chief talent it was to draw quickly or to shoot directly from the pocket. That poor child … what responsibilities she had perhaps been forced to undertake.
