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“I know,” he said. “I know. But you’ve sort of felt it all the same. Me, for instance!” His intensely blue eyes challenged her suddenly. “Haven’t you said to yourself, ‘That man may be up to local standard, but he’s made of shocking crude material’? Straight now! Haven’t you?”

She hesitated, her face burning under his direct look. “Do you–do you really want to know what I think?” she said.

“I do.” There was something uncompromising in the brief rejoinder, yet somehow she did not find him formidable.

She answered him without difficulty in spite of her embarrassment. “I think, then, that it isn’t you yourself at all that I feel like that about. It’s just your profession.”

“Ah!” He began to smile again. “Once live down that, and I might be possible. Is that it?”

She nodded, still flushed, yet curiously not uneasy. “Something like that. Why can’t you be a farmer like Jack?”

“I wish I were,” he said, unexpectedly.

“Why?” The word slipped out almost in spite of her, but she felt she must have an answer.

He answered her with his eyes full on her. “Because I’d like to lead the sort of life you would approve of,” he said. “I’ve a notion it would be worth while.”

She turned aside from his look. “It’s only a matter of opinion, of course,” she said.

“Is it?” he said. He turned his attention to the meal before him, and ate rapidly for a few moments while he considered the matter. At length: “Yes,” he said. “I suppose you’re right. Anyhow, you don’t feel drawn that way. You won’t feel a bit pleased if Buckskin Bill gets caught by the police this journey after this?”

Dot shook her head. “I don’t think a man ought to be tracked down like a wild beast,” she said, resolutely.

The blue eyes that watched her kindled a little. He finished what was on his plate and pushed it from him.

“I’m greatly obliged to you,” he said, “for your hospitality. I needed it–badly enough. You’ll thank Jack for me, won’t you? I must be going now. But there’s just one thing I’d like to say to you first.”

He got up and stood before her. It was impossible not to admire his splendid height and breadth of chest. He could have lifted her easily with one hand. And yet, strangely, though she felt his power he did not make her aware of her own weakness.

She looked up at him. “Yes? What is it?”

“Just this, Miss Burton,” he said, and somehow he lingered over the name in a fashion that made it sound musical in her ears. “I’d like to strike a bargain with you–because you’ve made a sort of impression on me. I’m not meaning any impertinence. You know that?”

“Go on!” she whispered, almost inaudibly.

He went on, bending slightly towards her. “The odds are dead against Buckskin Bill escaping, but–he may escape. If he does, will you–the next time I come to see you–treat me–without prejudice?”

He also was almost whispering as he uttered the last words.

She drew a sharp breath and looked at him. “You–you–are going to let him go?” she said, incredulously.

He did not answer. His eyes were drawing hers with a magnetism she could not resist. And they thrilled her–they thrilled her!

“The odds are dead against him,” he said again, after a moment. “Is it–a bargain?”

Her heart gave a queer little jerk within her. She stood motionless for a space. Then, with a little quivering smile, she very, very slowly gave him her hand.

He took it into his great brown one, and though his touch was wholly gentle she felt the force of the man throbbing behind it, and it seemed to surge all around and within her.

He stood for a second as if irresolute or uncertain how to treat her. Then, with a wordless sound that needed no interpretation, he pushed back the sleeve from the place whence he had sucked the poison. It showed only a little red now. He bent very low until his lips pressed it again. Then for one burning moment they neither moved nor breathed.