"My God!" panted DeWitt. "Rhoda, don't! You don't know what you're saying! Rhoda!"
Rhoda looked off where the afternoon sun lay like the very glory of God upon the chaos of range and desert. Almost--almost the secret of life itself seemed to bare itself to the girl's wide eyes. The white men watched her aghast. There was a desperate, hunted look in DeWitt's tired face. Rhoda turned back.
"I know what I'm saying," she replied. "But I tell you that this thing is bigger than I am! I have fought it, defied it, ignored it. It only grows the stronger! I know that this comes to humans but rarely. Yet it has come to me! It is the greatest force in the world! It is what makes life persist! To most people it comes only in small degree and they call that love! To me, in this boundless country, it has come boundlessly. It is greater than what you know as love. It is greater than I am. I don't know what sorrow or what joy my decision may bring me but--John, I want you to let Kut-le live that I may marry him!"
DeWitt's arm dropped as if dead.
"Rhoda," he repeated, agonizedly, "you don't know what you are saying!"
"Don't I?" asked Rhoda steadily. "Have I fought my fight without coming to know the risk? Don't I know what atavism means, and race alienation, and hunger for my own? But this which has come to me is stronger than all these. I love Kut-le, John, and I ask you to give his life to me!"
Still Kut-le stood motionless, as did Jack and Porter. DeWitt, without taking his eyes from Rhoda's, slowly, very slowly, slipped his Colt back into his belt. For a long moment he gazed at the wonder of the girl's exalted face. Then he passed his hands across his eyes.
"I give up!" he said quietly. Then he turned, walked slowly to the cañon edge, and clambered deliberately down the trail.
Jack and Billy stood dazed for a moment longer, then Porter cleared his throat.
"Miss Rhoda, don't do this! Now don't you! Come with us back to the ranch. Just for a month till you get away from this Injun's influence! Come back and talk to Mrs. Newman. Come back and get some other woman's ideas! For God's sake, Miss Rhoda, don't ruin your life this way!"
"When Katherine knows it all, she'll understand and agree with me," replied Rhoda. "Jack, try to remember everything I said, to tell Katherine."
"I tell her!" cried Jack. "Why can't you tell her yourself? What are you planning to do?"