“Maybe you’re right.  I hope she’s fallen in love with Steele.  Lord knows I hope so,” I blurted out.

I bit my tongue.  There was no use in trying to be as shrewd with women as I was with men.  I made no reply.

“Misery loves company.  Maybe that’s why,” she added.  “You told me Steele lost his head over Diane at first sight.  Well, we all have company.  Good night, Russ.”

That night I told Steele about the singular effect the story of his treatment of Vey had upon Miss Sampson.  He could not conceal his feelings.  I read him like an open book.

If she was unhappy because he did something really good, then she was unhappy because she was realizing she had wronged him.

Steele never asked questions, but the hungry look in his eyes was enough to make even a truthful fellow exaggerate things.

I told him how Diane was dressed, how her face changed with each emotion, how her eyes burned and softened and shadowed, how her voice had been deep and full when she admitted her father hated him, how much she must have meant when she said she was between two fires.  I divined how he felt and I tried to satisfy in some little measure his craving for news of her.

When I had exhausted my fund and stretched my imagination I was rewarded by being told that I was a regular old woman for gossip.

Much taken back by this remarkable statement I could but gape at my comrade.  Irritation had followed shortly upon his curiosity and pleasure, and then the old sane mind reasserted itself, the old stern look, a little sad now, replaced the glow, the strange eagerness of youth on his face.

“Son, I beg your pardon,” he said, with his hand on my shoulder.  “We’re Rangers, but we can’t help being human.  To speak right out, it seems two sweet and lovable girls have come, unfortunately for us all, across the dark trail we’re on.  Let us find what solace we can in the hope that somehow, God only knows how, in doing our duty as Rangers we may yet be doing right by these two innocent girls.  I ask you, as my friend, please do not speak again to me of—­Miss Sampson.”

I left him and went up the quiet trail with the thick shadows all around me and the cold stars overhead; and I was sober in thought, sick at heart for him as much as for myself, and I tortured my mind in fruitless conjecture as to what the end of this strange and fateful adventure would be.

I discovered that less and less the old wild spirit abided with me and I become conscious of a dull, deep-seated ache in my breast, a pang in the bone.

From that day there was a change in Diane Sampson.  She became feverishly active.  She wanted to ride, to see for herself what was going on in Linrock, to learn of that wild Pecos county life at first hand.

She made such demands on my time now that I scarcely ever found an hour to be with or near Steele until after dark.  However, as he was playing a waiting game on the rustlers, keeping out of the resorts for the present, I had not great cause for worry.  Hoden was slowly gathering men together, a band of trustworthy ones, and until this organization was complete and ready, Steele thought better to go slow.