"Colter--tell me now," cried Ellen.
"Wal, all right. Come over heah," he replied, and drew her away from the camp fire, out in the shadow of gloom. "Poor kid! I shore feel bad aboot it." He put a long arm around her waist and drew her against him. Ellen felt it, yet did not offer any resistance. All her faculties seemed absorbed in a morbid and sad anticipation.
"Ellen, y'u shore know I always loved y'u--now don't y 'u?" he asked, with suppressed breath.
"No, Colter. It's news to me--an' not what I want to heah."
"Wal, y'u may as well heah it right now," he said. "It's true. An' what's more--your dad gave y'u to me before he died."
"What! Colter, y'u must be a liar."
"Ellen, I swear I'm not lyin'," he returned, in eager passion. "I was with your dad last an' heard him last. He shore knew I'd loved y'u for years. An' he said he'd rather y'u be left in my care than anybody's."
"My father gave me to y'u in marriage!" ejaculated Ellen, in bewilderment.
Colter's ready assurance did not carry him over this point. It was evident that her words somewhat surprised and disconcerted him for the moment.
"To let me marry a rustler--one of the Hash Knife Gang!" exclaimed Ellen, with weary incredulity.
"Wal, your dad belonged to Daggs's gang, same as I do," replied Colter, recovering his cool ardor.
"No!" cried Ellen.
"Yes, he shore did, for years," declared Colter, positively. "Back in Texas. An' it was your dad that got Daggs to come to Arizona."
Ellen tried to fling herself away. But her strength and her spirit were ebbing, and Colter increased the pressure of his arm. All at once she sank limp. Could she escape her fate? Nothing seemed left to fight with or for.
"All right--don't hold me--so tight," she panted. "Now tell me how dad was killed ... an' who--who--"
Colter bent over so he could peer into her face. In the darkness Ellen just caught the gleam of his eyes. She felt the virile force of the man in the strain of his body as he pressed her close. It all seemed unreal--a hideous dream--the gloom, the moan of the wind, the weird solitude, and this rustler with hand and will like cold steel.
"We'd come back to Greaves's store," Colter began. "An' as Greaves was daid we all got free with his liquor. Shore some of us got drunk. Bruce was drunk, an' Tad in there--he was drunk. Your dad put away more 'n I ever seen him. But shore he wasn't exactly drunk. He got one of them weak an' shaky spells. He cried an' he wanted some of us to get the Isbels to call off the fightin'.... He shore was ready to call it quits. I reckon the killin' of Daggs--an' then the awful way Greaves was cut up by Jean Isbel--took all the fight out of your dad. He said to me, 'Colter, we'll take Ellen an' leave this heah country--an' begin life all over again--where no one knows us.'"