“Why not, dear one?” he asked.

Still the sun flickered on the pine-needles and still Molly hummed over her stew-pot.  Still Rhoda stood looking into the eyes of the man she loved, her scarlet cheeks growing each moment more deeply crimson.

“Because you are an Indian.  The instinct in me against such a marriage is so strong that I dare not go against it.”

Kut-le’s mouth closed in the old way.

“And still you shall marry me, Rhoda!”

“I am a white woman, Kut-le.  I can’t marry an Indian.  The difference is too great!”

Kut-le turned abruptly and walked to the canon edge, looking far out to the desert.  Rhoda, panting and half hysterical, watched him.  The moment which she had so dreaded had arrived, and she found herself, after all her planning, utterly unprepared to meet it save with hackneyed phrases.

It seemed a long time that Kut-le stood staring away from her.  At last Rhoda could bear the silence no longer.  She ran to him and put her trembling hand on his arm.  He turned his stern young face to her and her heart failed her.

“O Kut-le!  Kut-le!” she cried.  “If you won’t help me to do right, who will?  It’s not right for us to marry!  Just not right!  That’s all I know about it!”

Kut-le put both hands on her shoulders.

“Look here, Rhoda.  What you call the ‘right’ instinct is just the remnant of the old man-made race hatred in you.  It’s just a part of the old conceit of the Caucasian.”

Rhoda stirred restlessly, but Kut-le held her firmly and went on.

“I tell you, if we’re not to go mad, we’ve got to believe that great things come to us for a purpose.  There is no human being who has loved who does not believe that love is the greatest thing that has been given to man.  The man who has loved knows that the biggest things in the world have been done for the love of woman.  Love is bigger than nations or races.  It’s human, not white, or black, or yellow.  It’s above all we can do to tarnish it with our little prejudices.  When it comes greatly, it comes supremely.”

He lifted the girl’s face and looked deeply into her eyes.

“Rhoda, if it has come as greatly to you as it has to me, you will not pause for any sorrow that your coming to me may cost you.  You will come, in spite of everything.  I believe that if in your smallness and ignorance you refuse this gift that has come to you and me, you will be outraging the greatest force in nature.”

Rhoda stood sorrow-stricken and confused.  When the deep, quiet voice ceased, she said brokenly: 

“I haven’t lived in the desert so long as you.  The way does not lie so clear to me.  If only I had your conviction, I too could be strong and walk the path I saw unhesitatingly.  But I see no path!”

“Then,” said Kut-le, “because I see, I’ll decide for you!  O Rhoda, you must believe in me!  I have had you in my power and I have kept the faith with you.  I am going to take you and marry you.  I am going to make this gift that has come to you and me make us the big man and woman that nature needs.  Tonight we shall reach the padre who will marry us.”