The girl regarded him critically.  “I have a great deal of respect for Tex’s judgment,” she smiled.

“Then, dear, I am going to ask you again, the question I have asked you times out of number:  Will you marry me?”

“Don’t spoil it all, now, please.  I am enjoying it so.  Enjoying being here with just you and the big West.  Oh, this is the real West—­the West of which I’ve dreamed!”

Endicott nodded:  “Yes, this is the West.  You were right, Alice.  California is no more the West than New York is.”

“Don’t you love it?” The girl’s eyes were shining with enthusiasm.

“Yes.  I love it,” he answered, and she noticed that his face was very grave.  “There must be something—­some slumbering ego in every man that awakens at the voice of the wild places.  Our complex system of civilization seems to me, as I sit here now, a little thing—­a thing, somehow, remote—­unnecessary, and very undesirable.”

“Brooklyn seems very far away,” murmured the girl.

“And Cincinnati—­but not far enough away.  We know they are real—­that they actually exist.”  Endicott rose and paced back and forth.  Suddenly he stopped before the girl.  “Marry me, Alice, and I’ll buy a ranch and we will live out here, and for us Brooklyn and Cincinnati need never exist.  I do love it all, but I love you a thousand times more.”

To Endicott’s surprise the girl’s eyes dropped before his gaze and rested for a long time upon the grazing horses—­then abruptly she buried her face in her arms.  The man had half expected a return to the light half-mocking raillery that had been her staunchest weapon, but there was nothing even remotely suggestive of raillery in the figure that huddled at his feet.  Suddenly, his face became very grave:  “Alice,” he cried, bending over her, “is it because my hands are red?  Because I have taken a human life, and am flying from the hand of the law like a common murderer?”

“No, no, no!  Not that?  I——­”

Swiftly he gathered her into his arms, but she freed herself and shook her head in protest.  “Don’t please,” she pleaded softly.  “Oh, I—­I can’t choose.”

“Choose!” cried Endicott.  “Then there is—­someone else?  You have found—­” he stopped abruptly and drew a long breath.  “I see,” he said, gently, “I think I understand.”

The unexpected gentleness of the voice caused the girl to raise her head.  Endicott stood as he had stood a moment before, but his gaze was upon the far mountains.  The girl’s eyes were wet with tears:  “Yes, I—­he loves me—­and he asked me to marry him.  He said I would marry either you or him, and he would wait for me to decide—­until I was sure.”  Her voice steadied, and Endicott noticed that it held a trace of defensive.  “He’s a dear, and—­I know—­way down in his heart he’s good—­he’s——­”

Endicott smiled:  “Yes, little girl, he is good.  He’s a man—­every inch of him.  And he’s a man among men.  He’s honest and open hearted and human.  There is not a mean hair in his head.  And he stands a great deal nearer the top of his profession than I do to the top of mine.  I have been a fool, Alice.  I can see now what a complacent fool and a cad I must have been—­when I could look at these men and see nothing but uncouthness.  But, thank God, men can change——­”