e left for the coyotes and the
buzzards?"

She was white to the lips, but at his next word the blood came flaming
back to her cheeks.

"Why don't you tell the truth? Why don't you; say you love him, and be
done with it? Say it and I'll take him back to Tucson with you safe as
if he were a baby."

She covered her face with her hands, but with two steps he had reached
her and captured he hands.

"The truth," he demanded, and his eyes compelled.

"It is to save his life?"

He laughed harshly. "Here's melodrama for you! Yes--to save your lover's
life."

She lifted her eyes to his bravely. "What you say is true. I love him."

Leroy bowed ironically. "I congratulate Mr. Collins, who is now quite
safe, so far as I am concerned. Meanwhile, lest he be jealous of your
absence, shall we return now?"

Some word of sympathy for the reckless scamp trembled on her lips, but
her instinct told her would hold it insult added to injury, and she left
her pity unvoiced.

"If you please."

But as he heeled away she laid a timid hand on his arm. He turned and
looked grimly down at the working face, at the sweet, soft, pitiful
eyes brimming with tears. She was pure woman now, all the caste pride
dissolved in yearning pity.

"Oh, you lamb--you precious lamb," he groaned, and clicked his teeth
shut on the poignant pain of his loss.

"I think you're splendid," she told him. "Oh, I know what you've
done--that you are not good. I know you've wasted your life and lived
with your hand against every man's. But I can't help all that. I look
for the good in you, and I find it. Even in your sins you are not petty.
You know how to rise to an opportunity."

This man of contradictions, forever the creature of his impulses, gave
the lie to her last words by signally failing to rise to this one. He
snatched her to him, and looked down hungry-eyed at her sweet beauty, as
fresh and fragrant as the wild rose in the copse.

"Please," she cried, straining from him with shy, frightened eyes.

For answer he kissed her fiercely on the cheeks, and eyes, and mouth.

"The rest are his, but these are mine," he laughed mirthlessly.

Then, flinging her from him, he led the way into the next room. Flushed
and disheveled, she followed. He had outraged her maiden instincts and
trampled down her traditions of caste, but she had no time to think of
this now.

"If you're through explaining the mechanism of that Winchester to
Sheriff Collins we'll reluct