“But, Roger, promise me you won’t––won’t––turn your gun against a man, Roger. It would make things so much worse. It would leave––nothing now. Don’t you see? It takes courage to avoid what seems to be the inevitable. That terrible skill which is yours, the trick in this hand on mine, is your worst enemy. Oh, Roger, if you’d never learned to throw a gun!”
“It isn’t that,” he told her gently. “It isn’t what you think at all. I’d rather cut off that right hand than have it raised unfairly against a single living thing. They call me a gunman, girlie, an’ I reckon I am. But I’m not a killer. There’s a difference between the two, an’ sometimes I think it’s that difference that’s makin’ all the trouble. I’m still tryin’ to steer by that thing you call the compass, an’ that’s why I’ve got to go to town.”
He stepped away from her, waved a farewell to 206 Mallory, who was watching the scene with a puzzled expression, and ran for his horse. A minute later the ringing hoof beats of his mount were dying in the still night.
Laura Mallory swayed, and her father hurried to her with the lamp and put his arm about her.
“What’s it all about, sweetie?” he asked complainingly.
“Nothing, daddy, nothing––only I love him.”
A puff of wind blew out the light in the lamp, and father and daughter stood with arms about each other under the dancing stars.