And every word he said she knew was the truth. Yet
her cool common sense struggled against it.
"What's the use of your escaping, ef you're comin' back here to be
ketched again?" she said pertly.
He drew a little nearer to her, but seemed to her the more awkward as
she resumed her self-possession. His voice, too, was broken, as if by
exhaustion, as he said, catching his breath at intervals:--
"I'll tell you. You did more for me than you think. You made another
man o' me. I never had a man, woman, or child do to me what you did.
I never had a friend--only a pal like Red Pete, who picked me up 'on
shares.' I want to quit this yer--what I'm doin'. I want to begin by
doin' the square thing to you"--He stopped, breathed hard, and then
said brokenly, "My hoss is over thar, staked out. I want to give him
to you. Judge Boompointer will give you a thousand dollars for him. I
ain't lyin'; it's God's truth! I saw it on the handbill agin a tree.
Take him, and I'll get away afoot. Take him. It's the only thing I can
do for you, and I know it don't half pay for what you did. Take it;
your father can get a reward for you, if you can't."
Such were the ethics of this strange locality that neither the man who
made the offer nor the girl to whom it was made was struck by anything
that seemed illogical or indelicate, or at all inconsistent with
justice or the horse-thief's real conversion.
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