"Thank you, Duke."
Lambert sat turning over in his mind something that he wanted to say to her, but which he could not yet shape to his tongue. She was looking in the direction of the light that he had been watching, a gleam of which showed faintly now and then, as if between moving boughs.
"I don't like the notion of your leaving this country whipped, Vesta," he said, coming to it at last.
"I don't like to leave it whipped, Duke."
"That's the way they'll look at it if you go."
Silence again, both watching the far-distant, twinkling light.
"I laid out the job for myself of bringing these outlaws around here up to your fence with their hats in their hands, and I hate to give it up before I've made good on my word."
"Let it go, Duke; it isn't worth the fight."
"A man's word is either good for all he intends it to be, or worth no more than the lowest scoundrel's, Vesta. If I don't put up works to equal what I've promised, I'll have to sneak out of this country between two suns."
"I threw off too much on the shoulders of a willing and gallant stranger," she sighed. "Let it go, Duke; I've made up my mind to sell out and leave."