en he talks love. I'm
scared, and don't believe. I'd as lief have his hate as his love.
And--and I haven't a thing against him."

There was a sort of desperation in the girl's whole manner of telling
of her fears. It hurt the man as he listened. But his pressure was
not idle. He was seeking corroboration of those doubts which haunted
him. Doubts which had only assailed him for the first time when he
learned of the nature of Murray's freight with John Dunne, and which
had received further support in his realization of the man's lies on
the subject of Alec.

"I've got to talk that way," he said. "I'm not yearning to drive you
any. Say, Jessie, if there's a person in this world I'd hate to drive
it's you. If there's a thing I could do to fix things easy for you,
why, a cyclone couldn't stop me fixing them that way. But I saw the
scare in your eyes through the window of that feller's office, and I
just had to know about it. I can't hand you the things tumbling around
in the back of my head. I don't know them all myself, but there's
things, and they're things I can't get quit of. Maybe some time
they'll straighten out, and when they do I'll be able to show them to
you. Meanwhile, we'll leave 'em where they are, and simply figger I'm
thinking harder than I ever thought in my life, and those thoughts are
around you, and for you, all the time."

The simplicity of his words and manner robbed the girl of all
confusion. A great delight surged through her heart. This great
figure, this strong man, with his steady eyes and masterful methods was
setting himself her champion before the world. The lonely spirit of
the wilderness was deeply in her heart, and the sense of protection
became something too rapturous for words.

Her frank eyes thanked him though her lips remained dumb.

"I'm quitting to-morrow," he went on. "But I couldn't go till I'd made
a big talk with you. Bill's been on the grouch days. And Charley?
Why, Charley's come nigh raising a riot. But I had to wait--for you."

He paused. Nor from his manner could any one have detected the depths
of emotion stirred in him. A great fear possessed him, and his heart
was burdened with the crushing weight of it. For the first time in his
life his whole future seemed to have passed into other hands. And
those hands were the brown sunburnt hands, so small, so desirable, of
this girl whose knowledge and outlook were bounded by the great
wilderness they h