. I didn't get a
dollar from the express company--but I tried--I want you to know,
anyway," he continued, "that I wouldn't rob an individual--and I
wouldn't have tried this, only I was blind drunk and desperate. I needed
cash, and needed it bad."

"What did you need it for?" asked Alice, with a steady look.

He hesitated, and a flush crept across his brown face. His eyes wavered.
"Well, you see, the old home was mortgaged--and mother was sick--"

"Oh, bosh! Tell me the truth," she demanded. "The papers said you did it
for a girl. Why not be honest with me?"

"I will," he responded, impulsively. "Yes, that's right. I did it for a
girl--and afterward, when I was on the run, what did she do? Threw me
down! Told everything she knew--the little coyote--and here I am hunted
like a wolf on account of it." His face settled into savage lines for a
moment. But even as he sat thus another light came into his eyes. His
gaze took account of Alice's lips and the delicate, rounded whiteness of
her neck and chin. Her like he had never met before. The girls he had
known giggled; this one smiled. His sweetheart used slang and talked of
cattle like a herder, but this woman's voice, so sweet and flexible,
made delightfully strange music to his ears.

Peggy's return cut short his confidence, and while she was in the cabin
he sat in silence, his eyes always on the girl. He seized every
opportunity to speak to her, and each time his voice betrayed increasing
longing for her favor.

Mrs. Adams, who had conceived a liking for him, ordered him about as
freely as though he were a hired guide, and he made himself useful on
the slightest hint.

Alice, on her part, was profoundly interested in him, and whenever her
foot would permit her to think of anything else, she pitied him. In the
madness of his need, his love, he had committed an act which made all
the world his enemy, and yet, as she studied his form and expression,
her heart filled with regret. He was very attractive in the Western way,
with nothing furtive or evasive about him.

With a directness quite equal to his own she questioned him about his
reckless deed.

"Why did you do it?" she exclaimed in despair of his problem.

"I don't know. Hanged if I do, especially now. Since seeing you I think
I was crazy--crazy as a loon. If I'd done it for you, now, it wouldn't
have been so wild. You're worth a man's life. I'd die for you."

This outburst of passion, so fierce and wild, thr