"Do you really, Bill? I am glad—yes, glad right through. I love you, too. Say, you're sure you don't think badly of me because—because I'm Peter's sister?"
There was a smiling, half-tearful look in her eyes—those expressive eyes which, but a moment before, had burnt with a vengeful fire—as she asked the question. After all her nature was wondrously simple.
"Why should I, dear?" he replied, bending and kissing the gauntleted hands which rested so lovingly in his. "My life has scarcely been a Garden of Eden before the Fall. And I don't suppose my future, even should I escape the laws of man, is likely to be most creditable. Your past is your own—I have no right nor wish to criticise. Henceforth we are united in a common cause. Our hand is turned against one whose power in this part of the country is almost absolute. When we have wrested his property from him, to the uttermost farthing, we will cry quits—"
"And on the day that sees Lablache's downfall, Bill, I will become your wife."
There was a pause. Then Bill drew her towards him and they sealed the compact with one long embrace. They were roused to the matters of the moment by another whinny from Golden Eagle, who was chafing at his forced imprisonment.
The two stood back from one another, hand in hand, and smiled as they listened to the tuneful plaint. Then the man unfolded a wonderful plan to this girl whom he loved. Her willing ears drank in the details like one whose heart is set with a great purpose. They also talked of their love in their own practical way. There was little display of sentiment. They understood without that. Their future was not alluring, unless something of the man's strange plan appealed to the wild nature of the prairie which, by association, has somehow become affiliated with theirs. In that quiet, evening-lit valley these two people arranged to set aside the laws of man and deal out justice as they understood it. An eye for an eye—a tooth for a tooth; fortune favoring, a cent, per cent, interest in each case. The laws of the prairie, in those days always uncertain, were more often governed by human passions than the calm equity of unbiased jurymen. And who shall say that their idea of justice was wrong? Two "wrongs," it has been said, do not make one "right." But surely it is not a human policy when smote upon one cheek to turn the other for a similar chastisement.
"Then we leave Golden Eagle where he is," said Jacky, as she remounted her horse and they prepared to return home.
"Yes. I will see to him," Bill replied, urging his horse into a canter towards the winding ascent which was to take them home.
The ducks frolicking in their watery playground chattered and flapped their heavy wings. The frogs in their reedy beds croaked and chirruped without ceasing. And who shall say how much they had heard, or had seen, or knew of that compact sealed in Bad Man's Hollow?