“You make it hard for me to say what I want to.  I am almost sorry we came, for I am not cunning with words, and I don’t know that you’ll understand,” said the Bronco Kid, gravely, “We looked at it this way:  you have had your victory, you have beaten your enemies against odds, you have recovered your mine, and they are disgraced.  To men like them that last will outlive and outweigh all the rest; but the Judge is our uncle and our blood runs in his veins.  He took Helen when she was a baby and was a father to her in his selfish way, loving her as best he knew how.  And she loves him.”

“I don’t quite understand you,” said Roy.

And then Helen spoke for the first time eagerly, taking a packet from her bosom as she began: 

“This will tell the whole wretched story, Mr. Glenister, and show the plot in all its vileness.  It’s hard for me to betray my uncle, but this proof is yours by right to use as you see fit, and I can’t keep it.”

“Do you mean that this evidence will show all that?  And you’re going to give it to me because you think it is your duty?”

“It belongs to you.  I have no choice.  But what I came for was to plead and to ask a little mercy for my uncle, who is an old, old man, and very weak.  This will kill him.”

He saw that her eyes were swimming while the little chin quivered ever so slightly and her pale cheeks were flushed.  There rose in him the old wild desire to take her in his arms, a yearning to pillow her head on his shoulder and kiss away the tears, to smooth with tender caress the wavy hair, and bury his face deep in it till he grew drunk with the madness of her.  But he knew at last for whom she really pleaded.

So he was to forswear this vengeance, which was no vengeance after all, but in verity a just punishment.  They asked him—­a man—­a man’s man—­a Northman—­to do this, and for what?  For no reward, but on the contrary to insure himself lasting bitterness.  He strove to look at the proposition calmly, clearly, but it was difficult.  If only by freeing this other villain as well as her uncle he would do a good to her, then he would not hesitate.  Love was not the only thing.  He marvelled at his own attitude; this could not be his old self debating thus.  He had asked for another chance to show that he was not the old Roy Glenister; well, it had come, and he was ready.

Roy dared not look at Helen any more, for this was the hardest moment he had ever lived.

“You ask this for your uncle, but what of—­of the other fellow?  You must know that if one goes free so will they both; they can’t be separated.”

“It’s almost too much to ask,” the Kid took up, uncertainly.  “But don’t you think the work is done?  I can’t help but admire McNamara, and neither can you—­he’s been too good an enemy to you for that—­and—­and—­he loves Helen.”