tt tried to dissuade the girl from her
purpose of accompanying him on his search for Tex and the half-breed.
But she would have it no other way, and finally, perforce, he consented.

Leaving her to pack up some food, Endicott filled the water-bag that
hung on the wall and, proceeding to the corral, saddled three of the
horses. Through the open window of the cabin he could see the girl
busily engaged in transferring provisions to a sack. He watched her as
she passed and repassed the window intent upon her task. Never had she
seemed so lovable, so unutterably desirable--and she loved him! With
her own lips she had told him of her love, and with her own lips had
placed the seal of love upon his own. Happiness, like no happiness he
had ever known should be his. And yet--hovering over him like a
pall--black, ominous, depressing--was the thing that momentarily
threatened to descend and engulf him, to destroy this new-found
happiness, haunt him with its diabolical presence, and crush his
life--and hers.

With an effort he roused himself--squared himself there in the corral
for the final battle with himself. "It is now or never," he gritted
through clenched teeth. "Now, and alone. She won't face the situation
squarely. It is woman's way, calmy to ignore the issue, to push it
aside as the ill of a future day."

She had said that he was right, and ethically, he knew that he was
right--but the fact of the deed remained. His hand had sped a soul to
its God.

Why?

To save the woman he loved. No jury on earth would hold him guilty.
He would surrender himself and stand trial. Then came the memory of
what Tex had told him of the machinations of local politics. He had no
wish to contribute his life as campaign material for a county election.
The other course was to run--to remain, as he now was, a fugitive, if
not from justice, at least from the hand of the law. This course would
mean that both must live always within the menace of the
shadow--unless, to save her from this life of haunting fear, he
renounced her.

His eyes sought the forbidding sweep of the bad lands, strayed to the
sluggish waters of the Missouri, and beyond, where the black buttes of
the Judith Range reared their massive shapes in the distance. Suddenly
a mighty urge welled up within him. He would not renounce her! She
was his! This was life--the life that, to him, had been as a sealed
book--the fighting life of the boundless open places.