Gunman's Reckoning, page 169 by Max Brand
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l the cabin was in deep shadow, but the golden hair of the girl glowed as if with an inherent light of its own, and the same light touched her face. Jack Landis was stricken with panic: he stammered in a dreadful eagerness of fear.
"Don't leave me, Lou. You know what it means. He wants to get you out of the way so that the colonel can be alone with me. Don't go, Lou! Don't go!"
As though she saw how hopeless it was to try to bar Donnegan by closing the door against him, she fell back to the bed. She kept her eye on the little man, as if to watch against a surprise attack, and, fumbling behind her, her hand found the hand of Landis and closed over it with the reassurance of a mother.
"Don't be afraid, Jack. I won't leave you. Not unless they carry me away by force."
"I give you my solemn word." said Donnegan in torment, "that the colonel shall not come near Landis while you're away with me."
"Your word!" murmured the girl with a sort of horrified wonder. "Your word!"
And Donnegan bowed his head.
But all at once she cast out her free hand toward him, while the other still cherished the weakness of Jack Landis.
"Oh, give them up!" she cried. "Give up my father and all his wicked plans. There is something good in you. Give him up; come with us; stand for us: and we shall be grateful all our lives!"
The little man had removed his hat, so that the sunshine burned brightly on his red hair. Indeed, there was always a flamelike quality about him. In inaction he seemed femininely frail and pale; but when his spirit was roused his eyes blazed as his hair burned in the sunlight.
"You shall learn in the end," he said to the girl, "that everything I do, I do for you."
She cried out as if he had struck her.
"It's not worthy of you," she said bitterly. "You are keeping Jack here--in peril--for my sake?"
"For your sake," said Donnegan.
She looked at him with a queer pain in her eyes.
"To keep you from needless lying," she said