a trial without somebody to try,
Tom."

"They'll have to make a stagger at it, or wait," McHale responded
seriously.

It was dusk when he headed westward, old Baldy, lightly packed,
trotting meekly at the tail of his saddle horse.

Casey, coming back from a final word with him, met Clyde strolling
toward the young orchard. He fell into step.

"Nice evening."

She regarded him quizzically. "I won't ask a single question. You
needn't be afraid."

"Did you think I meant to head off your natural curiosity? Not a bit of
it. You want to know where Tom is going at this time of night, and
why?"

"Of course I do. But I won't ask."

"You may just as well know now as later." He told her what had
happened, omitting to mention McHale's real reason for leaving the
ranch. Even in the darkness he could see the trouble in her eyes.

"You really mean it?" she questioned. "You mean that he has killed a
man?"

"Either that or shot him up pretty badly."

"I can scarcely believe it. I like McHale; he's droll, humorous, so
cheerful, so easy-going. I can't think of him as a murderer."

"Nonsense!" said Casey. "No murder about it. It was a fair gun
fight--an even break. This fellow came at Tom, shooting. He had to
protect himself."

"He could have avoided it. He had time to get on his horse and ride
away. But he waited."

"He did right," said Casey. "This man would have shot him on sight. It
was best to settle it then and there."

"That may be so," she admitted, "but life is a sacred thing to me."

"No doubt Tom considered his own life tolerably sacred," he responded.
"As an abstract proposition life may be sacred. Practically it's about
the cheapest thing on earth. It persists and repeats and increases in
spite of war, pestilence, and famine. The principal value of the
individual life is its service to other life. Cross wasn't much good.
That old Holstein over there in the corral, with her long and
honourable record of milk production and thoroughbred calves, is of
more real benefit to the world. You see, it was Tom or Cross. One had
to go. I'm mighty glad it was Cross."

"Oh, if you put it that way----"

"That's the way to put it. Of course, we aren't sure that he's more
than shot up a little. Still, knowing what Tom can do with a gun, I'm
inclined to think that Cross is all same good Indian."

For some moments they walked in silence. It was rapidly becoming dark.
A heavy bank of cloud, blue-black in the waning ligh