uess
I'm on'y jest a man. I ain't no sort o' bum angel, nor sanctimonious
sky-bustin' hymn-smiter. I'm on'y a man. An' I kind o' thank them as
is responsible that I ain't nuthin' else. Say"--his piercing eyes
seemed to bore their way right down to the little man's heart like
red-hot needles--"I ain't got a word to say to you but you orter be
herdin' wi' a crowd o' mangy gophers. Tchah! A crowd o' maggots 'ud
cut you off'n their visitin' list in a diseased carkis. Here's a
feller robs you in the meanest way a man ken be robbed, an' you're
yearnin' to hand him more--a low-down cur of a stage-robber, a
cattle-thief, the lowest down bum ever created--an' you'd hand over
this pore innercent little kiddie to him. Was there ever sech a
white-livered sucker? Say, you're responsible fer that pore little
gal's life, you're responsible fer her innercent soul, an' you'd hand
her over to James, like the worstest cur in creation. Say, I ain't got
words to tell you what you are. You're a white-livered bum that even
hell won't give room to. You're--"

"Here, hold on," cried Scipio, turning, with his pale eyes mildly
blazing. "You're wrong, all wrong. I ain't doing it because I'm scared
of James. I don't care nothing for his threats. I'm scared of no
man--not even you. See? My Jessie's callin' for her gal--my Jessie! Do
you know what that means to me? No, of course you don't. You don't
know my Jessie. You ain't never loved a wife like my Jessie. You ain't
never felt what a kiddie is to its mother. You can't see as I can see.
This little gal," he went on, tenderly laying an arm about Vada's
small shoulders, "will, maybe, save my pore Jessie. That pore gal has
hit the wrong trail, an'--an' I'd sacrifice everything in the world to
save her. I'd--I'd sell my own soul. I'd give it to--save her."

Scipio looked fearlessly into the gambler's eyes. His pale cheeks were
lit by a hectic flush of intense feeling. There was a light in his
eyes of such honesty and devotion that the other lowered his. He could
not look upon it unmoved.

Bill sat back, for once in his life disconcerted. All his righteous
indignation was gone out of him. He was confronted with a spectacle
such as, in his checkered career, he had never before been brought
into contact with. It was the meeting of two strangely dissimilar, yet
perfectly human, forces. Each was fighting for what he knew to be
right. Each was speaking from the bottom of a heart inspired by his
sense of