me into it. Why?"

"I'm awful obstinate when I get my back up," he smiled.

"That wasn't it. You did it to save a girl you had never seen but
once. I want to know why."

"All right. Have it your own way. But don't ask me to explain the
whyfors. I'm no Harvard professor."

"I know," she said softly. She was not looking at him, but out of the
window, and there were tears in her voice.

"Sho! Don't make too much of it. We'll let it go that I ain't all
coyote, after all. But that don't entitle me to any reward of merit.
Now, don't you cry, Miss Arlie. Don't you."

She choked back the tears, and spoke in deep self-scorn. "No! You
don't deserve anything except what you've been getting from me--
suspicion and distrust and hard words! You haven't done anything worth
speaking of-- just broke into a quarrel that wasn't yours, at the risk
of your life; then took it on your shoulders to let us escape; and,
afterward, when you were captured, refused to drag me in, because I
happen to be a girl! But it's not worth mentioning that you did all
this for strangers, and that later you did not tell even me, because
you knew it would trouble me that I had killed him, though in
self-defense. And to think that all the time I've been full of hateful
suspicions about you! Oh, you don't know how I despise myself!"

She let her head fall upon her arm on the table, and sobbed.