Alluna dragged him back fiercely.

"No, no! It means your life, John. Let the secret die, and she will
forget. She is so young. Time will cure her--time cures everything.
Don't tell her--don't tell any one--and, above all, don't tell that
soldier! He would not believe, nor would she. Even I have doubted!"

"You?"

"Yes, John. And if I don't believe, what is a stranger to say? No man
knowing you would believe the tale--without proof. Suppose she
doubted--have you ever thought of that? Would you not rather have her
die still loving you than live and disbelieve?"

"Yes, yes! Of course, I--I've thought of that, but--Woman, you're worse
than a rattlesnake!"

"Even if he knew, he might not marry her. You at least are clean, and
that other man was a devil. A brave man's life is too great a price to
pay for a grief that will die in a year." Alluna was speaking swiftly
in her own language, her body tense, her face ablaze, and no man seeing
her could ever again have called her people stolid.

"You think time will cure a love like that?" he said.

"Yes, yes!"

"That's all you know about it. Time may act that way perhaps in cities
and such places, but out in the hills it is different. When you've got
the breath of the forest in you, I say it is different. Time--why, I've
lived fifteen years in the open with a living memory. Every night I've
dreamed it over, every day I've lived it through; in every camp-fire I
see a face, and every wind from the south brings a voice to me. Every
stormy night a girl with eyes like Necia's calls to me, and I have to
follow. Every patch of moonlight shows her smiling at me, just beyond,
just in the shadow's edge. Love! Time! Why, Alluna, love is the only
thing in the world that never dies, and time only makes it the more
enduring."

He took up the white slouch hat he had thrown down when he came in, and
stepped to the door.

"Where are you going?" inquired the squaw, fearfully.

"To the barracks to give myself up!"

She flung herself at him with a great cry, and seized him about the
waist.

"You never loved me, John, but I have been a good woman to you,
although I knew you were always thinking of her--and had no thought of
me. I have loved this girl because you loved her. I have hated your
enemies because you hated them, and now I remember while you forget."

"Forget! What do you mean?"

"Stark!"

The man paused. "I did almost forget him--and after fifteen years!"

"Let us kill