s thirty yards distant, and
they reached it before either of them spoke. She was the first to break
the silence.

[Illustration: "OH, NO--NO! I CAN'T LET YOU GO, JACK. I CAN'T. I CAN'T."
_Page 294._]

"You won't do this dreadful thing--surely, you won't do it."

"No use saying another word about it. I told you that," he answered
doggedly.

"But---- Oh, don't you see? It's one of those things no white man can do.
Once it's done, you have put the bars up against decency for the rest of
your life."

"I reckon I'll have to risk that--and down in your heart you don't believe
it, because you think I've had the bars up for years."

She had come to an impasse already. She tried another turn. "And you said
you cared for me! Yet you are willing to make me unhappy for the rest of
my life."

"Why, no! I'm willing to make you happy. There's fish in the sea just as
good as any that ever were caught," he smirked.

"But it would help you to free him. Don't you see? It's your chance. You
can begin again, now. You can make him your friend."

His eyes were hard and grim. "I don't want him for a friend, and you're
dead wrong if you think I could make this a lever to square myself with
the law. I couldn't. He wouldn't let me, for one thing--he isn't that
kind."

"And you said you cared for me!" she repeated helplessly, wringing her
hands in her despair. "But at the first chance you fail me."

"Can't you see it isn't a personal matter? I've got nothing against
him--nothing to speak of. I'd give him to you, if I could. But it's not my
say-so. The thing is out of my hands."

"You could save him, if you set yourself to."

"Sure, I could--if I would pay the price. But I won't pay."

"That's it. You would have to give Rosario something--make some
concession," she said eagerly.

"And I'm not willing to pay the price," he told her. "His life's forfeit.
Hasn't he been hunting us for a week?"

"Let me pay it," she cried. "I have money in my own right--seven thousand
dollars. I'll give it all to save him."

He shook his head. "No use. We've turned down a big offer from West. Your
seven thousand isn't a drop in the bucket."

She beat her hands together wildly. "There must be some way to save him."

The outlaw was looking at her with narrowed eyes. He saw a way, and was
working it out in his mind. "You're willing to pay, are you?" he asked.

"Yes--yes! All I have."

He put his arms akimbo on the corral fence, and looked long a