de of herself
a lure, at tremendous cost to him and to her, and all in vain!

That night in the moonlit grove she summoned all her courage and,
turning suddenly in the path, she faced Lassiter and leaned close to
him, so that she touched him and her eyes looked up to his.

"Lassiter!... Will you do anything for me?"

In the moonlight she saw his dark, worn face change, and by that change
she seemed to feel him immovable as a wall of stone.

Jane slipped her hands down to the swinging gun-sheaths, and when she
had locked her fingers around the huge, cold handles of the guns, she
trembled as with a chilling ripple over all her body.

"May I take your guns?"

"Why?" he asked, and for the first time to her his voice carried a harsh
note. Jane felt his hard, strong hands close round her wrists. It was
not wholly with intent that she leaned toward him, for the look of his
eyes and the feel of his hands made her weak.

"It's no trifle--no woman's whim--it's deep--as my heart. Let me take
them?"

"Why?"

"I want to keep you from killing more men--Mormons. You must let me save
you from more wickedness--more wanton bloodshed--" Then the truth forced
itself falteringly from her lips. "You must--let--help me to keep my vow
to Milly Erne. I swore to her--as she lay dying--that if ever any one
came here to avenge her--I swore I would stay his hand. Perhaps I--I
alone can save the--the man who--who--Oh, Lassiter!... I feel that I
can't change you--then soon you'll be out to kill--and you'll kill
by instinct--and among the Mormons you kill will be the
one--who... Lassiter, if you care a little for me--let me--for my
sake--let me take your guns!"

As if her hands had been those of a child, he unclasped their clinging
grip from the handles of his guns, and, pushing her away, he turned his
gray face to her in one look of terrible realization and then strode off
into the shadows of the cottonwoods.

When the first shock of her futile appeal to Lassiter had passed, Jane
took his cold, silent condemnation and abrupt departure not so much as a
refusal to her entreaty as a hurt and stunned bitterness for her
attempt at his betrayal. Upon further thought and slow consideration of
Lassiter's past actions, she believed he would return and forgive her.
The man could not be hard to a woman, and she doubted that he could
stay away from her. But at the point where she had hoped to find him
vulnerable she now began to fear he was proof a