“But what will happen now?” asked Julie anxiously. “Aren’t the other two still alive? Can’t they make trouble?”
“Yes, but I don’t think they will. I have the drop on Smithy now, and he will either write a full dismissal of the matter for all three of them or he will swing with the rustlers. And if I know my Smithy Caldwell, he won’t be able to get pen and paper fast enough.”
“But can you save him, even at that cost, do you think? The cowmen won’t understand all this.”
“That will rest with your father, dear,” replied Bud, getting to his feet. “Now, let’s go over and see him, for I have something else I want to ask him.”
His face that had been clouded during his recital was suddenly flooded with the sunlight of his smile, and Julie realized for the first time what it 300 had cost him to lay bare again these painful memories of a past he had sought to bury.
When he had helped her to her feet she went to him and laid her hands on his shoulders, looking up into his face with eyes that brimmed with the loosed flood of her love, so long pent up.
“Can I ever be worth what I have cost you to-day?” she asked humbly.
Tenderly he gathered her to him.
“In love there is no such word as cost,” he said.