, that would not injure
the great principle for which he stood.

Both Steele and I simultaneously, from different angles of reasoning,
had arrived at a conviction of Sampson's guilt. It was not so strong as
realization; rather a divination.

Long experience in detecting, in feeling the hidden guilt of men, had
sharpened our senses for that particular thing. Steele acknowledged a
few mistakes in his day; but I, allowing for the same strength of
conviction, had never made a single mistake.

But conviction was one thing and proof vastly another. Furthermore, when
proof was secured, then came the crowning task--that of taking desperate
men in a wild country they dominated.

Verily, Steele and I had our work cut out for us. However, we were
prepared to go at it with infinite patience and implacable resolve.
Steele and I differed only in the driving incentive; of course, outside
of that one binding vow to save the Ranger Service.

He had a strange passion, almost an obsession, to represent the law of
Texas, and by so doing render something of safety and happiness to the
honest pioneers.

Beside Steele I knew I shrunk to a shadow. I was not exactly a heathen,
and certainly I wanted to help harassed people, especially women and
children; but mainly with me it was the zest, the thrill, the hazard,
the matching of wits--in a word, the adventure of the game.

Next morning I rode with the young ladies. In the light of Sally's
persistently flagrant advances, to which I was apparently blind, I saw
that my hard-won victory over self was likely to be short-lived.

That possibility made me outwardly like ice. I was an attentive,
careful, reliable, and respectful attendant, seeing to the safety of my
charges; but the one-time gay and debonair cowboy was a thing of the
past.

Sally, womanlike, had been a little--a very little--repentant; she had
showed it, my indifference had piqued her; she had made advances and
then my coldness had roused her spirit. She was the kind of girl to
value most what she had lost, and to throw consequences to the winds in
winning it back.

When I divined this I saw my revenge. To be sure, when I thought of it
I had no reason to want revenge. She had been most gracious to me.

But there was the catty thing she had said about being kissed again by
her admirers. Then, in all seriousness, sentiment aside, I dared not
make up with her.

So the cold and indifferent part I played was imperative.

We