His voice sank to a tender whisper.  He loved this motherless girl who was fighting the battle of life single-handed against overwhelming odds, with all the strength of his nature.  He had loved her ever since she had reached woman’s estate.  In asking for a return of his affections now he fully realized the cruelty of his course.  He knew that the future—­his future—­was to be given up to the pursuit of a terrible revenge.  And he knew that, in linking herself with him, she would perforce be dragged into whatever wrong-doing his contemplated revenge might lead him.  And yet he dared not pause.  It all seemed so plain—­so natural—­that they should journey through the crooked, paths of the future together.  Was she not equally determined upon a terrible revenge?

He waited in patience for his answer.  Suddenly she looked up into his face and gently placed her hands in his.  Her answer came with simple directness.

“Do you really, Bill?  I am glad—­yes, glad right through.  I love you, too.  Say, you’re sure you don’t think badly of me because—­because I’m Peter’s sister?”

There was a smiling, half-tearful look in her eyes—­those expressive eyes which, but a moment before, had burnt with a vengeful fire—­as she asked the question.  After all her nature was wondrously simple.

“Why should I, dear?” he replied, bending and kissing the gauntleted hands which rested so lovingly in his.  “My life has scarcely been a Garden of Eden before the Fall.  And I don’t suppose my future, even should I escape the laws of man, is likely to be most creditable.  Your past is your own—­I have no right nor wish to criticise.  Henceforth we are united in a common cause.  Our hand is turned against one whose power in this part of the country is almost absolute.  When we have wrested his property from him, to the uttermost farthing, we will cry quits—­”

“And on the day that sees Lablache’s downfall, Bill, I will become your wife.”

There was a pause.  Then Bill drew her towards him and they sealed the compact with one long embrace.  They were roused to the matters of the moment by another whinny from Golden Eagle, who was chafing at his forced imprisonment.

The two stood back from one another, hand in hand, and smiled as they listened to the tuneful plaint.  Then the man unfolded a wonderful plan to this girl whom he loved.  Her willing ears drank in the details like one whose heart is set with a great purpose.  They also talked of their love in their own practical way.  There was little display of sentiment.  They understood without that.  Their future was not alluring, unless something of the man’s strange plan appealed to the wild nature of the prairie which, by association, has somehow become affiliated with theirs.  In that quiet, evening-lit valley these two people arranged to set aside the laws of man and deal out justice as they understood it.  An eye for an eye—­a tooth for a tooth;