“That’s a fool thing to take in the heat, sir.”

“‘Tis if y’ intend to live, Wayland; but A’m at the end of this Trail.  A’d like a bit strength t’ tell y’ a thing or two before . . . as we rest!  Don’t waste any water on flap jacks.”

The mule lay rolling in the sage brush.  The two horses stood with lowered heads chacking on the bit and pawing.  Wayland saw the brandy flush mount to the purplish pallor of the old man’s face.

“Wayland, this is my jumping off place!  A’m at the end of the Track.  The Trail where the tracks all point one way.  ‘Tis na’ sensible y’r hangin’ back for me!  If y’ll take the fresh horse an’ go on alone, y’ll get out!  If the railroad is only thirty miles due East, y’ can make that.  We’ll rest a bit here, then after sundown we’ll ride on; an’ in the dark A’ll drop back.  If it hurts y’ t’ think of it, A’ll head my horse due East for the railroad!  Y’ll go on, Wayland!  Y’ll not turn back for me!”

It took the Ranger a moment to realize what the old frontiersman was trying to say.  “I think you’d better take another drink of that brandy,” he said.  “It seems to me a fool thing to let a good man die for the sake of catching three outlaw blackguards.”

“‘Tis not for the sake o’ three blackguards!” The words came out with a rap. “’Tis to vindicate justice, ‘tis to uphold law, an’ till every good citizen is willin’ to lay down his life hounding outrage to th’ very covert o’ Hell, t’ die protectin’ law an’ justice an’ innocence an’ right, y’r Nation wull be ruled by paltroons an’ cowards an’ white-vested blackguards!  Go; go on; go on to the end till ye fall and rot!  If th’ Devil takes to the open an’ the saints take to cover, whose goin’ t’ fight the battle for right?  The Armageddon o’ y’r Nation?  ‘Tis easy t’ be a good citizen when the bands are playin’ an’ the cannon roarin’.  ‘Tis harder in times o’ peace to fight the battle o’ the lone man!  These outlaws, these blackguards, these cut throats, they’re only the tools of the Man Higher Up!  Get them, then go on for the Man Higher Up!  Leave me, when A drop back in the dark to-night; if A’m in my senses, A’ll shout a bravo and give y’ a wave!  Y’r the Man on the Job, the Nation’s job!  ’Tis not by bludgeons and bayonets, ’tis by ballots and brains y’ll fight this battle out; and fight y’ must or y’r freedom will go the way o’ the old world despotisms down in a welter.  A wish y’d go to the top o’ the bank and have a look ahead.”

An absurd sense of power, of resolution from despair, of will to do—­suddenly swept over the Ranger.  He forgot his fatigue.  Months afterwards, a fellow student who had become a professor in psychology explained to him that it was a case of consciousness dipping suddenly down to the sublimal reservoirs of unconscious strength that lie in humanity; but then, Wayland had left two factors of explanation untold:  first, that the dying trumpet call of the old warrior missionary had opened the doors of consciousness to that night on the Ridge of the Holy Cross; second, that the setting sun tinging all the buttes and hummocks and plains with rose flame somehow tinctured his being with consciousness of her, consciousness of the life drafts he had taken from her lips that night of the Death Watch.