“Oh, you’re right—of course you’re right. But I wish I could be of some use to her. I wish I could chore round for the rest of my life, where I could kind o’ keep watch over her. I’d be glad enough to play the scullion in her kitchen. But if you’re going to take her—”
“But I’m not,” protested Ross. “I’m going to leave her right here. I can’t take her.”
Wetherford looked at him with steady eyes, into which a keen light leaped. “Don’t you intend to marry her?”
Ross turned away. “No, I don’t—I mean it is impossible!”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you’re already married?” He said this with menacing tone.
“No, I’m not married, but—” He stopped without making his meaning plain. “I’m going to leave the country and—”
Wetherford caught him up. “I reckon I understand what you mean. You consider Lize and me undersirable parents—not just the kind you’d cut out of the herd of your own free will. Well, that’s all right, I don’t blame you so far as I’m concerned. But you can forget me, consider me a dead one. I’ll never bother her nor you.”
Cavanagh threw out an impatient hand. “It is impossible,” he protested. “It’s better for her and better for me that I should do so. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going back to my own people.”
Wetherford was thoroughly roused now. Some part of his old-time fire seemed to return to him. He rose from his chair and approached the ranger firmly. “I’ve seen you act like a man, Ross Cavanagh. You’ve been a good partner these last few days—a son couldn’t have treated me better—and I hate like hell to think ill of you; but my girl loves you—I could see that. I could see her lean to you, and I’ve got to know something else right now. You’re going to leave here—you’re going to throw her off. What I want to know is this: Do you leave her as good as you found her? Come, now, I want an answer, as one man to another.”
Cavanagh’s eyes met his with firm but sorrowful gaze. “In the sense in which you mean, I leave her as I found her.”