r.

"I mean to say he made a little proposition that I had to turn down,"
he amended, with a direct glance at the girl. "An' now I've got to do
some more ridin'."

"You leavin' to-night?" asked Mallory in surprise. "We can put you up
here, Rathburn, an' I'll keep an eye out for visitors."

"And we'd have 'em afore mornin'," said Rathburn grimly. "Eagen will
see to it that Bob Long knows I was out here, right pronto. But I aim
to stop any posses from botherin' around your place. If there's one
thing I don't want to do, Mallory, it's make any trouble for you."

The girl came walking toward him and touched his arm.

"What are you going to do, Roger?" she asked in an anxious voice.

"I'm goin' straight into Hope," Rathburn replied.

"But, Roger," the girl faltered, "won't that mean--mean----"

"A show-down? Maybe so. I ain't side-steppin' it."

A world of worry showed in the girl's eyes. "Roger, why don't you go
away?" she asked hesitatingly. "Things could be worse, and maybe in
time they would become better. Folks forget, Roger."

For a moment Rathburn's hand rested on hers, as he looked down at
her.

"There's two ways of forgettin', girlie," he said soberly. "An' I
don't want 'em to forget me the wrong way."

"But, Roger, promise me you won't--won't--turn your gun against a man,
Roger. It would make things so much worse. It would leave--nothing
now. Don't you see? It takes courage to avoid what seems to be the
inevitable. That terrible skill which is yours, the trick in this hand
on mine, is your worst enemy. Oh, Roger, if you'd never learned to
throw a gun!"

"It isn't that," he told her gently. "It isn't what you think at all.
I'd rather cut off that right hand than have it raised unfairly
against a single living thing. They call me a gunman, girlie, an' I
reckon I am. But I'm not a killer. There's a difference between the
two, an' sometimes I think it's that difference that's makin' all the
trouble. I'm still tryin' to steer by that thing you call the compass,
an' that's why I've got to go to town."

He stepped away from her, waved a farewell to Mallory, who was
watching the scene with a puzzled expression, and ran for his horse. A
minute later the ringing hoof beats of his mount were dying in the
still night.

Laura Mallory swayed, and her father hurried to her with the lamp and
put his arm about her.

"What's it all about, sweetie?" he asked complainingly.

"Nothing, daddy, nothing--only I love