She stopped instantly and glanced up, her face flushing in the light streaming forth from the open door of the Occidental.

“I reckon I ’m alone here because I want to be,” she returned, defiantly.  “I ain’t no slave.  How do you get up there?”

He extended his hand, and drew her up beside him into the shaded corner.  “Well,” he said, “tell me the truth.”

“I ’ve quit, that’s all, Bob.  I just couldn’t stand for reform any longer, and so I ’ve come back here to you.”

The man drew a deep breath.  “Did n’t you like Mrs. Herndon?”

“Oh, she ’s all right enough, so far as that goes.  ’T ain’t that; only I just didn’t like some things she said and did.”

“Kid,” and Hampton straightened up, his voice growing stern.  “I ’ve got to know the straight of this.  You say you like Mrs. Herndon well enough, but not some other things.  What were they?”

The girl hesitated, drawing back a little from him until the light from the saloon fell directly across her face.  “Well,” she declared, slowly, “you see it had to be either her or—­or you, Bob, and I ’d rather it would be you.”

“You mean she said you would have to cut me out entirely if you stayed there with her?”

She nodded, her eyes filled with entreaty.  “Yes, that was about it.  I wasn’t ever to have anything more to do with you, not even to speak to you if we met—­and after you ’d saved my life, too.”

“Never mind about that little affair, Kid,” and Hampton rested his hand gently on her shoulder.  “That was all in the day’s work, and hardly counts for much anyhow.  Was that all she said?”

“She called you a low-down gambler, a gun-fighter, a—­a miserable bar-room thug, a—­a murderer.  She—­she said that if I ever dared to speak to you again, Bob Hampton; that I could leave her house.  I just could n’t stand for that, so I came away.”

Hampton never stirred, his teeth set deep into his cigar, his hands clinched about the railing.  “The fool!” he muttered half aloud, then caught his breath quickly.  “Now see here, Kid,” and he turned her about so that he might look down into her eyes, “I ’m mighty glad you like me well enough to put up a kick, but if all this is true about me, why should n’t she say it?  Do you believe that sort of a fellow would prove a very good kind to look after a young lady?”

“I ain’t a young lady!”

“No; well, you ’re going to be if I have my way, and I don’t believe the sort of a gent described would be very apt to help you much in getting there.”

“You ain’t all that.”

“Well, perhaps not.  Like an amateur artist, madam may have laid the colors on a little thick.  But I am no winged angel, Kid, nor exactly a model for you to copy after.  I reckon you better stick to the woman, and cut me.”

She did not answer, yet he read an unchanged purpose in her eyes, and his own decision strengthened.  Some instinct led him to do the right thing; he drew forth the locket from beneath the folds of her dress, holding it open to the light.  He noticed now a name engraven on the gold case, and bent lower to decipher it.