y, just what you did--how you felt."

"I can't remember very well," she replied, simply. "We must have ridden
forty miles that day we got away. You bled all the time. Toward evening
you lay on your horse's neck. When we came to this place you fell out of
the saddle. I dragged you in here and stopped your bleeding. I thought
you'd die that night. But in the morning I had a little hope. I had
forgotten the horses. But luckily they didn't stray far. I caught them
and kept them down in the gorge. When your wounds closed and you began
to breathe stronger I thought you'd get well quick. It was fever that
put you back. You raved a lot, and that worried me, because I couldn't
stop you. Anybody trailing us could have heard you a good ways. I don't
know whether I was scared most then or when you were quiet, and it was
so dark and lonely and still all around. Every day I put a stone in your
hat."

"Jennie, you saved my life," said Duane.

"I don't know. Maybe. I did all I knew how to do," she replied. "You
saved mine--more than my life."

Their eyes met in a long gaze, and then their hands in a close clasp.

"Jennie, we're going to get away," he said, with gladness. "I'll be well
in a few days. You don't know how strong I am. We'll hide by day and
travel by night. I can get you across the river."

"And then?" she asked.

"We'll find some honest rancher."

"And then?" she persisted.

"Why," he began, slowly, "that's as far as my thoughts ever got. It
was pretty hard, I tell you, to assure myself of so much. It means your
safety. You'll tell your story. You'll be sent to some village or town
and taken care of until a relative or friend is notified."

"And you?" she inquired, in a strange voice.

Duane kept silence.

"What will you do?" she went on.

"Jennie, I'll go back to the brakes. I daren't show my face among
respectable people. I'm an outlaw."

"You're no criminal!" she declared, with deep passion.

"Jennie, on this border the little difference between an out law and a
criminal doesn't count for much."

"You won't go back among those terrible men? You, with your gentleness
and sweetness--all that's good about you? Oh, Duane, don't--don't go!"

"I can't go back to the outlaws, at least not Bland's band. No, I'll go
alone. I'll lone-wolf it, as they say on the border. What else can I do,
Jennie?"

"Oh, I don't know. Couldn't you hide? Couldn't you slip out of Texas--go
far away?"

"I could never get out