Bess. I know that if anything should happen to
me you'd take care of her mother."

No answer, though Landor waited expectantly.

"I don't need to ask your promise to be good to Bess." Very different
from his usual peremptory self was the big rancher to-night, very
obvious, pathetically so, his effort to appear natural. "I know you'll
make her happy, my boy."

Even yet there was no response, and the visitor shifted uncomfortably.
As well as he knew his own name he knew that his secret was secret no
longer. Yet with the instinct of the wild thing that hides itself to die
alone he avoided direct mention of the fact, direct wording of the
inevitable. But something in the attitude of the motionless figure
before him prevented further dissimulation. Some influence urged him to
hasten the _denouement_ which he knew was but postponed. With an effort
he straightened in his seat and for the first time met the other's black
eyes steadily.

"I did right, don't you think, How?" he questioned directly.

"Right, perhaps; I don't know." A pause. "What I do know is that I'm
sorry you did as you did."

"Sorry, How?"

"Yes, sir. Very sorry."

"And why?"

No answer.

The light from the tin reflector had been playing full upon the Indian's
face, and now, rising, he shifted it until the corner by the stove was
in shadow.

"I will tell you why." He returned to his place and stretched himself as
before, his hands locked beneath his head. "You are a rich man, Mr.
Landor, and Bess is human. She doesn't know what money is yet, but you
will compel her to learn. From what I have read and the little I have
seen, I think she would be happier if she never knew."

For the third time Landor filled the pipe bowl and lit it with a
fragment of coal from the grate.

"I don't see why, How," he refuted.

"You do, though, sir."

"No. Tell me."

There was a long pause, so long that Landor fancied the other would not
answer; then of a sudden he found the intense black eyes fixed upon him
unshiftingly.

"The reason is because not only Bess but others are human. As we are now
I can make her happy, very happy. I know it because--I love her." He
paused, and into the tent there came the long-drawn-out wail of the baby
prisoner. Silence returned. "As surely as that little wolf is lonely,
Bess will know the trouble money brings if you do as you intend. Not
myself, but other men will teach her."

Landor was not smoking now. The pipe had gone d