would make me sick--but there's not time."

Over there in the hotel sat his sweetheart alone, away from her mother,
her friends, her home, waiting his return, knowing nothing. He looked
into the west. Between the sun and the bright ridges of the mountains
was still a space of sky; but the shadow from the mountains' feet had
drawn halfway toward the town. "About forty minutes more," he said
aloud. "She has been raised so different." And he sighed as he
turned back. As he went slowly, he did not know how great was his own
unhappiness. "She has been raised so different," he said again.

Opposite the post-office the bishop of Wyoming met him and greeted him.
His lonely heart throbbed at the warm, firm grasp of this friend's hand.
The bishop saw his eyes glow suddenly, as if tears were close. But none
came, and no word more open than, "I'm glad to see you."

But gossip had reached the bishop, and he was sorely troubled also.
"What is all this?" said he, coming straight to it.

The Virginian looked at the clergyman frankly. "Yu' know just as much
about it as I do," he said. "And I'll tell yu' anything yu' ask."

"Have you told Miss Wood?" inquired the bishop.

The eyes of the bridegroom fell, and the bishop's face grew at once more
keen and more troubled. Then the bridegroom raised his eyes again, and
the bishop almost loved him. He touched his arm, like a brother. "This
is hard luck," he said.

The bridegroom could scarce keep his voice steady. "I want to do right
to-day more than any day I have ever lived," said he.

"Then go and tell her at once."

"It will just do nothing but scare her."

"Go and tell her at once."

"I expected you was going to tell me to run away from Trampas. I can't
do that, yu' know."

The bishop did know. Never before in all his wilderness work had he
faced such a thing. He knew that Trampas was an evil in the country,
and that the Virginian was a good. He knew that the cattle thieves--the
rustlers--were gaining, in numbers and audacity; that they led many
weak young fellows to ruin; that they elected their men to office, and
controlled juries; that they were a staring menace to Wyoming. His heart
was with the Virginian. But there was his Gospel, that he preached, and
believed, and tried to live. He stood looking at the ground and drawing
a finger along his eyebrow. He wished that he might have heard nothing
about all this. But he was not one to blink his responsibility as a
Christian