The words fell fast and in a fury. They came as if they had been choked back till they strangled. "Sassoon took me over there. Toward night we got in sight of the ranch-house. We saw a man down at the corral. 'That's Jennings,' Sassoon says. I never laid eyes on him before--I never laid eyes on your father before. Both of us fired. Next day we heard your father was killed, and Jennings had left the country. Sassoon or I, one of us, killed your father, de Spain. If it was I, I did it never knowing who he was, never meaning to touch him. I was after the man that killed my brother. Sassoon didn't care a damn which it was, never did, then nor never. But he held it over me to make trouble sometime 'twixt you and me. I was a young fellow. I thought I was revenging my brother. And if your father was killed by a patched bullet, his blood is not on me, de Spain, and never was. Sassoon always shot a patched bullet. I never shot one in my life. And I'd never told you this of my own self. Nan said it was the whole truth from me to you, or her life. She's as much mine as she is yours. I nursed her. I took care of her when there weren't no other living soul to do it. _She got me and herself out into this, this morning. I'd never been caught like this if I'd had my way._ I told her 'fore we'd been out an hour we'd never see the end of it. She said she'd rather die in it than you'd think she quit you. I told her I'd go on with her and do as she said--that's why we're here, and that's the whole truth, so help me God! "I ain't afraid of you, de Spain. I'll give you whatever you think's coming to you with a rifle or a gun any time, anywhere--you're a better man than I am or ever was, I know that--and that ought to satisfy you. Or, I'll stand my trial, if you say so, and tell the truth." The ice-laden wind, as de Spain stood still, swept past the little group with a sinister roar, insensible alike to its emotions and its deadly peril. Within the shelter of his arm he felt the yielding form of the indomitable girl who, by the power of love, had wrung from the outlaw his reluctant story--the story of the murder that had stained with its red strands the relations of each of their lives to both the others. He felt against his heart the faint trembling of her frail body. So, when a boy, he had held in his hand a fluttering bird and felt the whirring beat of its frightened heart against his strong, cruel fingers. A sudden aversion to more bloodshed, a sickening of vengeance, swept over him as her heart mutely beat for mercy against his heart. She had done more than any man could do. Now her. In the breathless embrace that drew her closer she read her answer from him. She looked up into his eyes and waited. "There's more than what's between you and me, Duke, facing us now," said de Spain sternly, when he turned. "We've got to get Nan out of this--even if we don't get out ourselves. Where do you figure we are?" he cried.