The Texan shook his head: "I got you into this deal, an'----"

"You did it to protect me!" flared Endicott. "I'm the cause for all
this, and I'll stand the gaff!"

The Texan smiled, and Endicott noticed that it was the same cynical smile
with which the man had regarded him in the dance hall, and again as they
had faced each other under the cottonwoods of Buffalo Coulee. "Since
when you be'n runnin' this outfit?"

"It don't make any difference since when! The fact is, I'm running it,
now--that is, to the extent that I'll be damned if you're going to stay
behind and rot in this God-forsaken inferno, while I ride to safety on
your horse."

The smile died from the cowboy's face: "It ain't that, Win. I guess you
don't savvy, but I do. She's yours, man. Take her an' go! There was a
while that I thought--but, hell!"

"I'm not so sure of that," Endicott replied. "Only yesterday, or the day
before, she told me she could not choose--yet."

"She'll choose," answered Tex, "an' she won't choose--me. She ain't
makin' no mistake, neither. By God, I know a man when I see one!"

Endicott stepped forward and shook his fist in the cowboy's face: "It's
the only chance. You can do it--I can't. For God's sake, man, be
sensible! Either of us would do it--for her. It is only a question of
success, and all that it means; and failure--and all that that means.