Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/153

 would a man have against a killer like that if he didn’t have a gun?”

The girl’s mind traveled swiftly back to a certain night when she had heard screams and oaths behind her as Flash fought half a dozen men to give her time. She had had a vague idea that his snaps and snarls had retarded them until she was out of hearing. Now, for the first time, it occurred to her that he had struck them so savagely that they had feared to follow her through the night.

“Would you sell Flash at any price?” she asked.

“No,” Moran answered instantly. “He’s yours. I lost my title to him when I left him behind. I knew he would hate it in the city and I expected to be away but a week or two. He turned outlaw, was hunted all over the range. He showed up here and attached himself to you. I have no claim to him. He belongs to you.”

The girl held out her hand to him.

“Kinney told me that all men like you,” she said. “Now I know why. “They don’t make ’em any whiter than Clark Moran,’ was what he told me. I endorse his statement. And I want