sh answer. "Besides, I don't fight. I
yield to mine. Enough of that. It is you we have to consider, not me.
You have saved my life, and I have got to pay the debt."

"I didn't think who you were," her honesty compelled her to say.

"That doesn't matter. You did it. I'm going to take you back to your
father and straight as I can."

Her eyes lit. "Without a ransom?"

"Yes."

"You pay your debts like a gentleman, sir."

"I'm not coyote all through."

She could only ignore the hunger that stared out of his eyes for her.
"What about your friends? Will they let me go?"

"They'll do as I say. What kicking they do will be done mostly in
private, and when they're away from me."

"I don't want to make trouble for you."

"You won't make trouble for me. If there's any trouble it will be for
them," he said grimly.

Neither of them made any motion toward the house. The girl felt a
strange impulse of tenderness toward this man who had traveled so fast
the road to destruction. She had seen before that deep hunger of the
eyes, for she was of the type of woman that holds a strong attraction
for men. It told her that he had looked in the face of his happiness
too late--too late by the many years of a misspent life that had decreed
inexorably the character he could no longer change.

"I am sorry," she said again. "I didn't see that in you at first. I
misjudged you. One can't label men just good or bad, as the novelists
used to. You have taught me that--you and Mr. Neil."

His low, sardonic laughter rippled out. "I'm bad enough. Don't make any
mistake about that, Miss Mackenzie. York's different. He's just a good
man gone wrong. But I'm plain miscreant."

"Oh, no," she protested.

"As bad as they make them, but not wolf clear through," he said again.
"Something's happened to me to-day. It won't change me. I've gone too
far for that. But some morning when you read in the papers that Wolf
Leroy died with his boots on and everybody in sight registers his
opinion of the deceased you'll remember one thing. He wasn't a wolf to
you--not at the last."

"I'll not forget," she said, and the quick tears were in her eyes.

York Neil came toward them from the house. It was plain from his manner
he had a joke up his sleeve.

"You're wanted, Phil," he announced.

"Wanted where?"

"You got a visitor in there," Neil said, with a grin and a jerk of
his thumb toward the house. "Came blundering into the draw sorter
accidental-like, b