ily.

"I was afraid you'd kill him. I reckon I can't blame you. I'll help you
get away. And I'm a Mormon! Do you take the hunch?... But don't deny you
killed him!"

"Killed whom?" gasped Shefford.

"Her husband!"

Shefford seemed stricken by a slow, paralyzing horror. The Mormon's
changing face grew huge and indistinct and awful in his sight. He was
clutched and shaken in Joe's rude hands, yet scarcely felt them. Joe
seemed to be bellowing at him, but the voice was far off. Then Shefford
began to see, to hear through some cold and terrible deadness that had
come between him and everything.

"Say YOU killed him!" hoarsely supplicated the Mormon.

Shefford had not yet control of speech. Something in his gaze appeared
to drive Joe frantic.

"Damn you! Tell me quick. Say YOU killed him!... If you want to know
my stand, why, I'm glad!... Shefford, don't look so stony! ... For HER
sake, say you killed him!"

Shefford stood with a face as gray and still as stone. With a groan the
Mormon drew away from him and sank upon a log. He bowed his head; his
broad shoulders heaved; husky sounds came from him. Then with a violent
wrench he plunged to his feet and shook himself like a huge, savage dog.

"Reckon it's no time to weaken," he said, huskily, and with the words a
dark, hard, somber bitterness came to his face.

"Where--is--she?" whispered Shefford.

"Shut up in the school-house," he replied.

"Did she--did she--"

"She neither denied nor confessed."

"Have you--seen her?"

"Yes."

"How did--she look?"

"Cool and quiet as the Indian there.... Game as hell! She always had
stuff in her."

"Oh, Joe!... It's unbelievable!" cried Shefford. "That lovely, innocent
girl! She couldn't--she couldn't."

"She's fixed him. Don't think of that. It's too late. We ought to have
saved her."

"God!... She begged me to hurry--to take her away."

"Think what we can do NOW to save her," cut in the Mormon.

Shefford sustained a vivifying shock. "To save her?" he echoed.

"Think, man!"

"Joe, I can hit the trail and let you tell them I killed him," burst out
Shefford in panting excitement.

"Reckon I can."

"So help me God I'll do it!"

The Mormon turned a dark and austere glance upon Shefford.

"You mustn't leave her. She killed him for your sake.... You must fight
for her now--save her--take her away."

"But the law!"

"Law!" scoffed Joe. "In these wilds men get killed and there's no law.
But if she's taken