't think I'll tell you
who he is, Billie."

He hesitated. "That's all right, Polly. I don't want to pry into yore
secret. But--don't do anything foolish. Don't marry a man with the notion
of reformin' him or because he seems to you romantic. You have lots of
sense. You'll use it, won't you?" he pleaded.

"I'll try to use it, Billie," she promised. Then, the soft eyes shining
and the color still high in her cheeks, she added impulsively: "I don't
know anybody that needs some one to love him more than that poor boy
does."

"Mebbeso. But don't you be that some one, Polly." He hesitated, divided
between loyalty to his friend and his desire for this girl's good. His
brown, unscarred hand caught hers in a firm grip. "Don't you do it,
little girl. Don't you. The woman that marries Jim Clanton is doomed to
be miserable. There's no escape for her. She's got to live with her heart
in her throat till the day they bring his dead body back to her."

She leaned toward him, and now there was no longer any doubt that her
eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Perhaps a woman doesn't marry for
happiness alone, Billie. That may come to her, or it may not. But she has
to fulfill her destiny. I don't know how to say what I mean, but she must
go on and live her life and forget herself."

Prince rejected this creed flatly. "No! No! The best way to fulfill yore
life is to be happy. That's what you've always done, an' that's why
you've made other people happy. Because you go around singin' an'
dancin', we all want to tune up with you. When I was out bossin' a
freight outfit I used to think of you at night under the stars as a
little Joybird. Now you've got it in that curly head of yours that you 'd
ought to be some kind of a missionary martyr for the sake of a man's
soul. That's all wrong."

"Is it?" she asked him with a crooked, little, wistful smile. "How about
you? Do you want to be sheriff? Is it going to make you so awfully happy
to spend your time running down outlaws for the good of the country?
Aren't you doing it because you've been called to it and not because you
like it?"

"That's different," he protested. "When the community needs him a man's
got to come through or be a yellow hound. But you've got no right to
toss away yore life plumb foolishly just because you've got a tender
heart." Billie stopped again, then threw away any scruples he might have
on the score of friendship. "Jim is goin' to be what he is to the end of
th