He looked me over with contempt.  “You are not fit to touch the shoe on my girl’s foot,” he said slowly.  “But now, since this thing has begun, since you have thus involved her and compromised her, and as I imagine in some foul way have engaged her affections—­now, I say, it must go on.  When we get to Laramie, by God! sir, you shall marry that girl.  And then out you go, and never see her face again.  She is too good for you, but where you can be of use to her, for this reason, you shall be used.”

I seated myself, my head in my hands, and pondered.  He was commanding me to do that which was my dearest wish in life.  But he was commanding me to complete my own folly.  “Colonel Meriwether,” said I to him, finally, “if it would do her any good I would give up my life for her.  But her father can neither tell me how nor when my marriage ceremony runs; nor can he tell me when to leave the side of the woman who is my wife.  I am subject to the orders of no man in the world.”

“You refuse to do what you have planned to do?  Sir, that shows you as you are.  You proposed to—­to live with her here, but not be bound to her elsewhere!”

“It is not true!” I said to him in somber anger.  “I proposed to put before her the fact of my own weakness, of my own self-deception, which also was deception of her.  I propose to do that now.”

“If you did, she would refuse to look at you again.”

“I know it, but it must be done.  I must take my chances.”

“And your chances mean this alternative—­either that my girl’s reputation shall be ruined all over the country—­all through the Army, where she is known and loved—­or else that her heart must be broken.  This is what it means, Mr. Cowles.  This is what you have brought to my family.”

“Yes,” I said to him, slowly, “this is what I have brought.”

“Then which do you choose, sir?” he demanded of me.

“I choose to break her heart!” I answered.  “Because that is the truth, and that is right.  I only know one way to ride, and that is straight.”

He smiled at me coldly in his frosty beard.  “That sounds well from you!” he said bitterly.  “Ellen!” he raised his voice.  “Ellen, I say, come here at once!”

It was my ear which first heard the rustling of her footsteps at the edge of the thicket as she approached.  She came before us slowly, halting, leaning on her crutch.  A soft flush shone through the brown upon her cheeks.

I shall not forget in all my life the picture of her as she stood.  Neither shall I forget the change which came across her face as she saw us sitting there silent, cold, staring at her.  Then, lovable in her rags, beautiful in her savagery, the gentleness of generations of culture in all her mien in spite of her rude surroundings, she stepped up and laid her hand upon her father’s shoulder, one finger half pointing at the ragged scroll of hide which lay upon the ground before us.  I loved her—­ah, how I loved her then!