At the sound of her voice Johnson paled.  He listened to her retreating steps, then turning towards Nick he asked him to lock the door.

“Why, the devil . . .!” objected the Sheriff, angrily.

“Please,” urged the prisoner with such a look of entreaty in his eyes that Nick could not find it in his heart to deny him, and went forthwith to the door and locked it.

“Why, you—­” began Sonora with a hurried movement towards the prisoner.

“You keep out of this, Sonora,” enjoined the Sheriff, coming forward to take a hand in the proceedings.  “I handle the rope—­pick the tree . . .”

“Then hurry . . .” said Sonora, impatiently, while Trinidad interposed with his usual, “You bet!”

“One moment,” said the prisoner as the miners started to go out; and, strange to relate, the Sheriff ordered the men to halt.  Turning once more to the prisoner, he said: 

“Be quick—­what is it?”

“It is true,” began the unfortunate road agent in an even, unemotional voice, “that I love the Girl.”

At these words Rance’s arms flew up threateningly, while a mocking smile sprang to his lips.

“Well, you won’t in a minute,” he reminded him grimly.

The taunt brought no change of expression to the prisoner’s face or change of tone in his voice as he went on to say that he did not care what they did to him; that he was prepared for anything; and that every man who travelled the path that he did faced death every day for a drink of water or ten minutes’ sleep, concluding calmly: 

“You’ve got me and I wouldn’t care but for the Girl.”

“You’ve got just three minutes!” A shade almost of contempt was in Sonora’s exclamation.

“Yes . . .!” blazed Trinidad.

There was an impressive silence; then in a voice that trembled strangely between pride and humility Johnson continued: 

“I don’t want her to know my end.  Why, that would be an awful thought for her to go on with all her life—­that I died out there—­near at hand.  Why, boys, she couldn’t stay here after that—­she couldn’t . . .”

“That’s understood,” replied Rance, succinctly.

“I’d like her to think,” went on the prisoner, with difficulty choking back the tears, “that I got away clear and went East and changed my way of living.  So you just drag me a good ways from here before you—­” He stopped abruptly and began to swallow nervously.  When he spoke again it was with a perceptible change of manner.  “And when I don’t write and she never hears why she will say, ‘he’s forgotten me,’ and that will be about enough for her to remember, because she loved me before she knew what I was—­and you can’t change love in a minute.”

All the while Johnson had been speaking the Sheriff’s jealousy had been growing steadily until, finally, turning upon the other with a succession of oaths he struck him a fierce blow in the face.

“I don’t blame you,” returned the prisoner without a trace of malice in his voice.  “Strike me again—­strike me—­one death is not enough for me.  Damn me—­I wish you could . . .  Oh, why couldn’t I have let her pass!  I’m sorry I came her way—­but it’s too late now, it’s too late . . .”