“That’s different,” he protested.  “When the community needs him a man’s got to come through or be a yellow hound.  But you’ve got no right to toss away yore life plumb foolishly just because you’ve got a tender heart.”  Billie stopped again, then threw away any scruples he might have on the score of friendship.  “Jim is goin’ to be what he is to the end of the chapter.  You can’t change him.  Nobody can.  In this Washington County War he’s been a terror to the other side.  You know that.  For such a girl as you he’s outside the pale.”

“I heard Jean say once that Jim had never killed a man that didn’t need killing,” she protested.

“That may be true, too.  But it wasn’t up to him to do it.  It isn’t only killin’ either.  He’s on the wrong track.”

The young man could say no more.  He could not tell her that Clanton was suspected of rustling and that his name had been mentioned in connection with robbery of the mail.  These charges were not proved.  Prince himself still loyally denied their truth, though evidence was beginning to pile up against the young gunman.  He had warned Clanton, and Jim had clapped him on the shoulder, laughed, and invited him to take a drink with him.  This was not quite the way in which Billie felt an innocent man would receive news that he was being furtively accused of crime.

“Yes, he’s going wrong,” agreed Pauline.  “But we can’t desert him, can we?  You’re his best friend.  You know how brave he is, how generous, how at the bottom of his heart he loves people that are fine and true.  If we stand by him we’ll save him yet.”

The young man’s common sense told him that Clanton’s future lay with himself and his attitude toward his environment, but he loved the spirit of this girl’s gift of faith in her friends.  It was so wholly like her to reject the external evidence and accept her own conviction of his innate goodness.

“I hope yore faith will work a miracle.”

“I hate the things he does more than you do, Billie.  It is horrible to me that he can take human life.  I don’t justify him at all, even though usually he is on the right side.  But in spite of everything he has done Jim is only a wild boy.  And he’s so splendid some ways.  Any day he would give his life for you or for me or for Lee Snaith.  You feel that about him, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

He was not satisfied to let the subject drop, but for the present it had to be postponed.  For a young man and a young woman were turning in at the gate.  They were a handsome pair physically.  Each of them moved with the lithe grace of a young puma.  Pauline rose to meet them.

“I’m glad you came, Lee.  Didn’t know you were in town, Jim,”

Clanton smiled.  “I rode up from the Hondo to congratulate our new sheriff.  Don’t you let any of them outlaws escape, Billie.”

Prince looked directly into his audacious eyes as he shook hands with him.