“Oh, Dale, it was terrible! I saw it all. I—”
“Wal, Miss, you can tell him after I go.... I'm wishin' you good luck.”
His voice was a cool, easy drawl, slightly tremulous.
The girl's face flashed white in the gloom. She pressed against the outlaw—wrung his hands.
“Heaven help you, Jim Wilson! You ARE from Texas!... I'll remember you—pray for you all my life!”
Wilson moved away, out toward the pale glow of light under the black pines.
CHAPTER XXIV
As Helen Rayner watched Dale ride away on a quest perilous to him, and which meant almost life or death for her, it was surpassing strange that she could think of nothing except the thrilling, tumultuous moment when she had put her arms round his neck.
It did not matter that Dale—splendid fellow that he was—had made the ensuing moment free of shame by taking her action as he had taken it—the fact that she had actually done it was enough. How utterly impossible for her to anticipate her impulses or to understand them, once they were acted upon! Confounding realization then was that when Dale returned with her sister, Helen knew she would do the same thing over again!