If he had been in doubt before as to the exact word to apply to his feelings for Kate, there was no need to hesitate longer. What did it matter that she did not know how to pour tea gracefully and preside at a dinner table? By God--he wanted her, and that was all there was to it!
He was breathless when he reached the top of the ridge and his heart was pounding with the exertion in the high altitude, but he gave a gasp of relief when he saw her standing in the moonlight with dead and dying sheep around her.
"What's the matter?" he called, when his breath came back to him sufficiently.
"Poison. Somebody has scattered little piles of saltpeter all over the summit. There's no cure for it, so I shot some of them to put them out of their agony."
In his relief at finding her unharmed, the loss of the sheep seemed of no moment and he did not realize what it meant to her until she said with a choke in her voice: "They knew just where to hit me. I've scrimped and saved and sacrificed to buy those sheep--"
Her grief sent a flood of tenderness over him. He went to her swiftly, and taking the six-shooter gently from her hand laid it upon the ground.
"Come here," he said authoritatively, and drew her to him.
She did not resist, and her head dropped to his shoulder in a movement of disheartened weariness.
"Oh, Hughie--I'm so tired of fighting--so tired--of everything."
He smoothed her hair as he would have soothed a child, and said decisively--yet with a big tenderness: "And you shan't do any more of it!"
He felt his heart breaking with the love he felt for her.
"Kiss me--Honey!" he said softly.
She winced at the old sweet term of endearment, then with a sharp intake of breath she raised her lips to his. He was sure that no other woman's kiss could so draw the soul out of him. Beth seemed only a shadow--like someone long dead whose personality is recalled with an effort.
This was love--this was the sort of feeling the Creator intended men and women to have for each other--mysterious, inexplicable, yet real as Nature. It was as it should be. These thoughts passed through Disston's mind swiftly. Up there on top of the world, in the moonlight, any consideration which interfered seemed trifling and indefensible.
"You do love me?" He held her off a little and looked at her. He did not doubt it--he merely wanted to hear her say it.
She replied simply: "Yes, Hughie. I have always."