breath, a soft word, might have encouraged and supported it. But
it was out of his mouth, the fruit of his brooding days, in his
resentfulness of her injustice, her ingratitude for his sacrifice, as
he believed. He saw her turn from him, as if a revulsion of the old
feeling swept her.

"Don't judge me too harshly, Mr. Morgan," she appealed, still looking
away.

Morgan was melted by her gentle word; the severity of the moment was
dissolved in a breath.

"If we could go on as we began," he suggested, almost pleading in his
great desire.

"Why, aren't we?" she asked, succeeding well, as a woman always can in
such a situation, in giving it a discouraging artlessness.

"You know how they're kicking and complaining all around the square
because I've shut up the town, ruined business, brought calamity to
their doors as they see it?"

"Yes, I know."

"They forget that they came to me with their hats in their hands and
asked me to do it. Joe Lynch says the hot wind has dried their reason up
like these prairie springs. I believe he's right. But I didn't shut the
town up for them, I didn't go out there with my gun like a savage and
shoot men down for them, Miss Thayer. If you knew how much you were----"

"Don't--don't--Mr. Morgan, please!"

"I think there's something in what Joe Lynch says about the wind," he
told her, leaning toward her, hand on the horn of her saddle. "It warps
men, it opens cracks in their minds like the shrunk lumber in the houses
of Ascalon. I think sometimes it's getting its work in on me, when I'm
lonesome and disappointed."

"You ought to come in and talk with me and Riley sometimes."

"I've often felt like going to them, whining around about the town being
killed," he went on, pursuing his theme as if she had not spoken, "and
telling them they didn't figure in my calculations at the beginning nor
come in for any of my consideration at the end--if this is the end.
There was only one person in my thoughts, that one person was Ascalon,
and all there was in it, and that was you. When I took the job that day,
I took it for you."

"Not for me alone!" she hastened to disclaim, as one putting off an
unwelcome responsibility, unfriendly denial in her voice.

"For you, and only you," he told her, earnestly. "If you knew how much
you were to me----"

"Not for me alone--I was only one among all of them," she said, spurring
her horse in the vehemence of her disclaimer, causing it to start away
from