Brand Blotters - Page 151/180

Then Jack's grave smile thanked her. "You've done what you could,

Melissy."

She clung to him wildly. "Oh, no--no! I can't let you go, Jack. I can't. I

can't."

"I reckon it's got to be, dear," he told her gently.

But her breaking heart could not stand that. There must somehow be a way

to save him. She cast about desperately for one, and had not found it when

she begged the outlaw chief to see her alone.

"No use." He shook his head.

"But just for five minutes! That can't do any harm, can it?"

"And no good, either."

"Yet I ask it. You might do that much for me," she pleaded.

Her despair had moved him; for he was human, after all. That he was

troubled about it annoyed him a good deal. Her arrival on the scene had

made things unpleasant for everybody. Ungraciously he assented, as the

easiest way out of the difficulty.

The two moved off to the corral. It was perhaps 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."