He caught her by the shoulders and held her fast.  “You’ve been the truest little friend ever a man had.  You’ve stuck by me an’ believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself any longer.  No matter what folks said about me or about you for takin’ an interest in such a scamp, you never quit fightin’ to keep me decent.  I’ve heard tell of guardian angels—­well, that’s what you’ve been to me, little pilgrim.”

“I haven’t forgotten the boy who rode up Escondido Canon to save me from death and dishonor,” Pauline cried softly.

“You’ve paid that debt fifty times.  I owe you more than I can tell.  I wisht I knew a way to pay it.”

Her soft and dusky eyes clung to his pleadingly.  “If you get away, Jim, you will be good, won’t you?”

“I’ll be as good as I’ve got it in me to be.  I don’t know how good that is, Polly.  But I’ll do my level best.”

“Oh, I’m so glad,” she whispered.  “Good luck—­heaps of it.”

He was not quite sure whether it was his privilege to kiss the parted red lips upturned to him, but he took a chance and was not rebuked.

Pauline went noiselessly down the steps again into the cellar while Clanton held the trapdoor.  He lowered it inch by inch so that it would not creak, then spread over it the Navajo rug that had been there before the entrance of the girl.

Pierre Roubideau was still on his first pipe when Polly came round the corner of the house and stopped at the porch steps.

“I want to show you our new colt, Jack,” she said to the deputy.  This matter-of-fact statement came a little shyly and a little tremulously from her lips.  Her heart was beating furiously.

The officer rose at once.  “Just a minute,” he said, and went into the house.

He unlocked the door of the room where Clanton was and glanced in.  The prisoner lay on the bed in the moonlight, the blankets drawn over him.  From his deep, regular breathing Jack judged him to be asleep.  He relocked the door and joined Pauline.

The face of the girl was very white in the moonlight.  Her big eyes flashed at him a question.  Had he discovered that his prisoner was free?

They walked slowly toward the corral.  From it Goodheart could see the front of the house, but not the cellar entrance at the side.  Neither of them spoke until they reached the fence.  He turned and leaned his elbows against it, facing the house.

Pauline was under great nervous tension.  Her lips were dry and her throat parched.  If the guard at the rear caught sight of the prisoner while he was escaping, Clanton would certainly be shot down.  She knew Jim better than to hope that he would let himself be taken again alive.

The conscience of the girl troubled her too.  She was doing this to save the life of a friend, but it was impossible not to feel a sense of treachery toward this other friend whose approval was so much more vital to her happiness.  Would Jack think that she had conspired against his honor in an underhanded way?  He was a man of strict principles.  Would he cast her off and have no more to do with her?