Mr. Hampton was never of a pronounced emotional nature, nor was he a

person easily disconcerted, yet he flushed at the sound of these

impulsive words, and the confident smile deserted his lips. For a

moment they sat thus, the dead body lying between, and looked at each

other. When the man finally broke the constrained silence a deeper

intonation had crept into his voice.

"My girl," he said gravely, and not without a suspicion of pleading,

"this is no place for me to attempt any defence of a shooting affray in

a gambling-house, although I might plead with some justice that Eberly

enjoyed the honor of shooting first. I was not aware of your personal

feeling in the matter, or I might have permitted some one else to come

here in my stead. Now it is too late. I have never spoken to you

before, and do so at this time merely from a sincere desire to be of

some assistance."

There was that in his manner of grave courtesy which served to steady

the girl. Probably never before in all her rough frontier experience

had she been addressed thus formally. Her closely compressed lips

twitched nervously, but her questioning eyes remained unlowered.

"You may stay," she asserted, soberly. "Only don't touch me."

No one could ever realize how much those words hurt him. He had been

disciplined in far too severe a school ever to permit his face to index

the feelings of his heart, yet the unconcealed shrinking of this

uncouth child from slightest personal contact with him cut through his

acquired reserve as perhaps nothing else could ever have done. Not

until he had completely conquered his first unwise impulse to retort

angrily, did he venture again to speak.

"I hope to aid you in getting back beside the others, where you will be

less exposed."

"Will you take him?"

"He is dead," Hampton said, soberly, "and I can do nothing to aid him.

But there remains a chance for you to escape."

"Then I won't go," she declared, positively.

Hampton's gray eyes looked for a long moment fixedly into her darker

ones, while the two took mental stock of each other. He realized the

utter futility of any further argument, while she felt instinctively

the cool, dominating strength of the man. Neither was composed of that

poor fibre which bends.

"Very well, my young lady," he said, easily, stretching himself out

more comfortably in the rock shadow. "Then I will remain here with

you; it makes small odds."




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