ou tell me all this?"

The old man moistened his lips before speaking. "If A don't go out,
Wayland, A want y' t' see that her father's told, that she's taken
back. When A saw the love light in her face come out like stars and
her breath break when A spoke of you as a Ranger fellow, when A saw
that, A thought, no matter what A thought. If y' married her, d' y'
think y' could go off on the firing line; d' y' think y' would if y'
knew y'd left her in danger? They'd strike at you through her, Wayland
. . . it would be the end of free fightin'. A ask no promise. 'Tis
enough A've told y'. Drive on!"

They moved slowly up the sand ridge, the Ranger a little ahead,
oblivious of the livid blue of the old man's lips and the drag on the
bridle rope till a quick jerk ripped the line from his loose hold; and
he glanced back to see the other's horse stagger, flounder up again,
waver and sink with a sucking groan. Wayland sprang just in time to
catch the old frontiersman. He tore the saddle from the fallen broncho
and cinched it on his own horse. Then he lifted Matthews, protesting,
to the fresh mount, "till we reach the next rest place," he said, tying
the halter rope of the pack mule to the saddle pommel. "Go on, I'll
come."

Wayland waited till the horse and mule passed over the crest of the
sand bank; then, he took out his revolver. A shudder ran through the
fallen horse. The Ranger's hand trembled. He stroked its neck. "Poor
devil; it's none of your affair either. I wonder how the God of the
game will square it with the dumb brutes?"

He ran his left hand down the white face of the broncho. It hobbled as
if to stagger up, and sank back dumb, faithful, trying to the end, one
fore knee bent to rise, the neck outstretched. Wayland's right hand
went swiftly close between eye and ear. He shot, in quick succession,
three times, his hand fumbling, his sight turned aside.

Neither spoke as they advanced down the other side of the sand ridge,
the Ranger steadying himself with a hand to the mule's neck. The bank
dipped to a white alkali pit where the light lay in dead pools, gray in
the twilight, quivering with heat, layers of blue air above ashes of
death. For the second time that day, the sand colored thing skulked
across the trail. Wayland took hold of both bridles and led down, the
old man wakening as from a stupor. The alkali pit lay perhaps a mile
distant, gray and fading in the red light.

"Wayl