Conover half lifted himself with a sudden, eager impatience, then dropped back. “It’s this way, Cody,” he said: “she can’t handle the language like we can, for, though she knew it when she was a child, and I’ve taken the trouble to teach her what I could, it doesn’t come natural to her. I asked her to have you come here, that I could explain; for I don’t want you to think too hard about what has happened.” When the scout did not answer, Conover went on hurriedly: “It all goes back to a good many years ago, when I was captured by these Indians, and would have been killed, if she had not saved my life. I paid her for that, later, by marrying her. I couldn’t get away, and by and by I didn’t want to; I only wanted to stay with her. As I shan’t be able to make you understand that part of it, Cody, I’ll not try to; only I’ll say this, there came a time when I would have died for this woman, and that time ain’t past yet. “But we had quarrels, in spite of the fact that I loved her better than any other woman I’d ever seen, and then, too, I got jealous of the chief here, old Fire Top. We had a regular duel about her, me and him, on horseback, with lances, and that’s how I got this beauty mark.” He tapped the scar significantly. “The fight happened out in the hills beyond the town, and he left me here for dead. When I came to myself, I was a bit hazy mentally, and I cut out, without trying to get back. I feared, too, that old Fire Top would kill me, after what had happened. And she had turned against me. So I fled. “That was a good while ago. I shan’t go into all the details—it ain’t necessary. But I hit out for the white man’s country, and though I knew there was gold here aplenty, I never cared to come back to try to get any of it, for what is gold if you have to pay your life for it. “I roamed round after that, here, there, and everywhere, and done all sorts of work, and the years slipped past. I kept my own counsel. I still loved this woman, and I knew if I spread round a report of the gold in here adventurers would crowd in, and maybe the Toltecs here would be annihilated and the woman killed, and I didn’t want that to happen. I had come to like a good many of these reds, and, as I said, I loved the woman, though I wasn’t sure that I’d ever see her again. “A month or so ago I met one of the Red Feathers near the town of Cochise—you know where that is—and he told me the woman was dead. He lied to me, as I know now, because he was afraid I’d try to come back, and he didn’t want it. But I took his word for it. “That knocked me out—I went all to pieces; and in Cochise, and in Skyline, I simply went on a spree that came nigh being my last. You know about that.