“And you really believe that he loves my sister?”
“I know that he does.”
“Then aid me to escape so that there can be no barrier to their union, for of all men I believe I would rather have her wed Colonel Dunwoody than any one I know, for he would make her a noble husband.”
“I am sure of that.”
“And you had better fish in other waters for a lover.”
“I?”
“Yes, for there is Surgeon Frank Powell, Captain Dick Caruth, Buffalo Bill—and I’ll name no others, for those three strike me as men worth striving for. If I were a woman I should love the three of them and Colonel Dunwoody, too.”
“Are you in earnest?”
“Indeed I am, for I have the happy faculty of admiring my foes. Now, I have always admired the man who was my rival in love, though I hated him and sought to kill him. To him, to Surgeon Powell and to Buffalo Bill I owe it that I am here now, and yet I cannot but like them immensely. There is Caruth, too, the one who advocated hanging me, and I admire him also and thought he was perfectly right. I would have done as much for him had I had him in my place.”
“You are a very remarkable man, Arden, and if you had devoted to good deeds the talent and energy you have to evil ones, you would have made a very great name.”