She met his glance and hers was proud. "I think not, Jimmy. You are a white man and mean to take the proper line. But I will not marry you because I stopped the trooper."
Jimmy threw back his head and she liked his frank, scornful laugh. "Now, you're altogether ridiculous! Your stopping the fellow does not account for my wanting to marry you. Soon after I got to work at the ranch I knew I loved you, but I went to the mountains with Stannard and the trouble began. So long as the police were hunting for me I dared not urge you."
"But now you urge me? It looks as if your scruples had vanished!"
Jimmy let go the bridle and bent his head. "I suppose it does look like that. All the same, I love you."
Margaret leaned down and touched him gently. "You keep your rules, and your rules are good. Perhaps it's strange, but I think a woman will break conventions where a man will not. Still, you see, I'm proud——"
"You are very hard," Jimmy rejoined. "Yet you ran some risk to warn me. I know your pluck, but if you had not loved me, I think you'd have stayed at Kelshope."
"We'll let it go," said Margaret in a quiet voice. "There's another thing; ranching is a game for you, but it's my proper work. Yours is at the cotton mill. You're rich and your wife must be clever and cultivated."
"I haven't known a girl with talents, grace and beauty like yours," Jimmy declared. "Then I'm not rich yet, the police are on my track, and I may soon be a prisoner——" He looked up and added in a dreary voice: "I admit it's not much of an argument for your marrying me."
Margaret smiled "Perhaps you were not logical, but we'll talk about it again, when we get to Green Lake. You mustn't talk now. I don't know if the trooper would stop long at the ranch, and we must cross the hill before the moon is up."
She started her horse and they pushed on. An hour afterwards the moon rose from behind a broken range, and silver light touched the stiff dark pines. The high peaks sparkled; a glacier glimmered in the rocks, and the mists curling up from the valley were faintly luminous. Jimmy smelt sweet resinous smells and heard a distant river throb. The landscape was strangely beautiful, but its beauty was austere. All was keen, and cold, and bracing, and Jimmy, walking by Margaret's bridle, thought her charm was the charm of the stern and quiet North.