"Don't, don't, Tex! You haven't tried to forget. How many girls have you known since—a year ago?"
"None—an' I don't want to know any! There ain't any more like you——"
Alice interrupted him with a laugh: "Don't be a fool! I know loads of girls—and they're all prettier than I am, and they've got lots more sense, too. Please don't spoil our anniversary this way. There are twenty men out there, and they're all armed, and they've sworn to kill you if you don't give yourself up."
"They better start in killin', then." Throwing back his shoulders, he struck the bar with his fist. "I'll tell you what I'll do—an' that's all I'll do. You go back an' tell 'em I'll pay my fine, an' a reasonable amount of damages if they'll leave my horse outside and let me go away from here. It ain't because I'm afraid of 'em," he hastened to add, "not a man of 'em—nor all of 'em. But, if you want it that way, I'll do it."
"But, we don't want you to go away!" cried the girl. "Win wants to see you."
The cowboy shook his head: "I'm goin' away—an' far away," he answered, "I don't know what his scheme is, an' I don't want to know. We'd all be fools to tackle it. If that plan suits you, go ahead—no arrest—I'll just pay my fine an' go. An' if it don't suit you, you better go back to Win. This is no place for you anyhow. Let 'em go ahead with their killin', if they think they can get away with it."
For a moment the girl hesitated, then, picking up her candle from the bar, she started slowly toward the door. "If I can only get word to Win and Mr. Colston," she thought, "I can delay things until they get here."
"Well, what'd he say?" growled Hod Blake, stepping from among his retainers.
The tone angered the girl and she glanced contemptuously into the eyes that stared boldly at her from beneath the wide hat-brim: "He said that you can't arrest him," she answered defiantly, "and if you knew him as well as I do, you'd know he told the truth."
"Oh-ho, so he's got a record, has he?" leered the marshal. "Mebbe they'll be more to this here business than just pickin' up a plain drunk—little reward money, mebbe—eh?"