"I cannot BEAR to see you go."

Payson gently disengaged her arms.

"I must, Echo. It is what Dick would do for me if I were in his
place."

However, while Payson and Bud were preparing for their departure,
Buck McKee appeared in the region and reported that Dick Lane had
been killed by the Apaches. He told with convincing details of
how he had met Lane as each was returning from a successful
prospecting trip in the Ghost Range, and how they had sunk their
differences in standing together against an attack of the
Indians. He extolled Dick's bravery, relating how, severely
wounded, he had stood off the savages to enable himself to
escape.

When he handed over Dick's watch to Echo--for he had learned on
his return that she was betrothed to Lane--as a last token from
her lover, no doubt remained in the minds of his hearers of the
truth of his story, and Payson and Bud Lane gave up their
purposed expedition.

The owner of Sweetwater Ranch, while accepting McKee's account,
could not wholly forget the half-breed's former evil reputation,
and was reserved in his reception of the advances of the
ex-rustler who was anxious to curry favor. Warm-hearted,
impulsive Bud, however, whose fraternal loyalty had increased
under his bereavement to the supreme passion of life, took the
insinuating half-breed into the aching vacancy made by his