She shrank closer against him.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TRAILS UNITE
So it was that Ned Lytton ceased to be and with his going went all barriers that had existed between Ann and Bruce. Each had played a part in the grim drama which ended with violence, yet to neither could any echo of blame for Ned's death be attached. Their hands and hearts were clean.
Ann's appeal to Bruce for help when Ned led her away from the ranch had been made because she knew that real danger of some sort awaited Ned at the Sunset mine; she had not considered herself or her own safety at all.
Bruce, for his part, had concentrated his last energy on averting the tragedy. He had looked for the moment on his love of Ann only as a factor which had helped bring about the crisis, thereby making him accountable. To play the game as he saw it, to be squared with his own conscience, he had risked everything, even his life, in his attempt to save Lytton.
Ned's true self had come to the surface just long enough to answer all questions that might have been raised after his death. In that last experience of his life he had risen above his cowardice. After hearing Ann's warning scream, he must have known that to fire on Bayard the second time meant his own death. Yet he was not dissuaded, just kept on attempting to satiate his lust for the rancher's life. So, utterly revealed, he died.
The fourth individual was to be considered—Benny Lynch. Through the months that he had brooded over the injustice which sent his father to a quick end, through the weeks that he had planned to administer his own justice, through the straining days that he had waited to kill, a part of him had been stifled. That part was the kindly, deliberate, peace loving Benny, and so surely as he was slow to anger he would have lived to find himself tortured by regret had he slain for revenge. As it was, he shot to save the life of a friend ... and only that. He lived to thank the scheme of things that had called on him to untangle the skein which events had snarled about Bruce and the woman he loved ... for it took from him the stain of killing for revenge.
Somehow, Bruce got Ann away from the Sunset mine that day. She was brave and struggled to bear up, but after the strain of those last weeks the fatigue of the ride Ned had forced her to take unnerved her and she was like a child when they gained the Boyd ranch where she was taken to the maternal arms of the mistress of that house, to be petted and cried over and comforted.