"No. Weddin' presents are for the bride. I saved it for you."
Tears were streaming from the girl's eyes: "It's the most wonderful wedding present anybody ever had," she sobbed. "I know Win did it for me, and if he had killed him it would have been justifiable—right. But, always, we would have had that thing to think of. It would have been like some hideous nightmare. We could have put it away, but it would have come again—always. I pretended I didn't care. I wouldn't let him see that it was worrying me, even more than it worried him."
The cowboy stooped and recovered the flowers from the ground. As Alice took them from him, her hand met his: "Good-bye," she faltered, "and—may God bless you!"
At the rock she turned and saw him still standing, hat in hand, as she had left him. Then she passed around the rock, and down the creek, where her lover waited with his arms laden with blossoms.
AN EPILOGUE
At exactly half-past four the Texan galloped to the door of the Red Front Saloon, and swinging from his horse, entered. Some men were playing cards at a table in the rear, but he paid them no heed. Very deliberately he squared himself to the bar and placed his foot upon the brass rail: "Give me some red liquor," he ordered. And when the bartender set out the bottle and the glass the cowboy poured it full and drank it at a gulp. He poured out another, and then a third, and a fourth. The bartender eyed him narrowly: "Ain't you goin' it a little strong, pardner?" he asked. The Texan stared at him as if he had not heard, and answered nothing. A smile bent the white aproned one's lips as he glanced into his customer's eyes still black from the blow Curt had dealt him in the coulee.
"Them lamps of yourn was turned up too high, wasn't they?" he asked.
The cowboy nodded, thoughtfully: "Yes, that's it. They was turned up too high—a damn sight too high for me, I reckon."
"Git bucked off?"
The blackened eyes narrowed ever so slightly: "No. A guard done that."