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."