Then a silence fell on them. Harold knew that his plans could not be carried out with a woman for companion--and he had sense enough to know that Mary's words were born of a momentary enthusiasm. When he spoke it was with characteristic blunt honesty. "No; right here our trails fork, Mary. Ever since I saw you in the jail the first time, you've been worth more to me than anything else in the world, but I can see now that things never can go right with you and me. I couldn't live back here, and you couldn't live with me out there. I'm a kind of an outlaw, anyway. I made up my mind last night that I'd hit the trail alone. I won't even ask Jack to go with me. There's something in me here"--he laid his hand on his breast--"that kind o' chimes in with the wind in the pinons and the yap of the ky-ote. The rooster and the church bells are too tame for me. That's all there is about it. Maybe when I get old and feeble in the knees I'll feel like pitchin' a permanent camp, but just now I don't; I want to be on the move. If I had a nice ranch, and you, I might settle down now, but then you couldn't stand even a ranch with nearest neighbors ten miles away." He turned to take his hat. "I wanted to see you--I didn't plan for anything else--I've seen you and so----" "Oh, you're not going now!" she cried. "You haven't told me your story." "Oh, yes, I have; all that you'd care to hear. It don't amount to much, except the murder charges, and they are wrong. It wasn't my fault. They crowded me too hard, and I had to defend myself. What is a man to do when it's kill or be killed? That's all over and past, anyway. From this time on I camp high. The roosters and church bells are getting too thick on the Arickaree." He crushed his hat in his hand as he turned to her, and tears were in her eyes as she said: "Please don't go; I expected you to stay to dinner with me." "The quicker I get out o' here the better," he replied hoarsely, and she saw that he was trembling. "What's the good of it? I'm out of it." She looked up at him in silence, her mind filled with the confused struggle between her passion and her reason. He allured her, this grave and stern outlaw, appealing to some primitive longing within her. "I hate to see you go," she said slowly. "But--I--suppose it is best. I don't like to have you forget me--I shall not forget you, and I will sing for you every Sunday afternoon, and no matter where you are, in a deep canon, or anywhere, or among the Indians, you just stop and listen and think of me, and maybe you'll hear my voice." Tears were in her eyes as she spoke, and he took a man's advantage of her emotion. "Perhaps if I come back--if I make a strike somewhere--if you'd say so----" She shook her head sadly but conclusively. "No, no, I can't promise anything." "All right--that settles it. Good-by." And she had nothing better to say than just "Good-by, good-by." CHAPTER XIV THE YOUNG EAGLE RETURNS TO HIS EYRIE