Her despair had moved him; for he was human, after all. That he was troubled about it annoyed him a good deal. Her arrival on the scene had made things unpleasant for everybody. Ungraciously he assented, as the easiest way out of the difficulty.
The two moved off to the corral. It was perhaps thirty yards distant, and they reached it before either of them spoke. She was the first to break the silence.
“OH, NO—NO! I CAN’T LET YOU GO, JACK. I CAN’T. I CAN’T.” Page 294.
“You won’t do this dreadful thing—surely, you won’t do it.”
“No use saying another word about it. I told you that,” he answered doggedly.
“But—— Oh, don’t you see? It’s one of those things no white man can do. Once it’s done, you have put the bars up against decency for the rest of your life.”
“I reckon I’ll have to risk that—and down in your heart you don’t believe it, because you think I’ve had the bars up for years.”