CHAPTER TENPencarrow paced the floor like a man coming out of a daze. “Brandon, I’d lost my faith in my fellow men,” he said, “an’ God, too, I reckon.”
“I’ve had a hard life,” replied Wade, “and I’ve felt that way often. But in every dark hour something saved me.”
“Dark hour? . . . I may be a bloody old Texan, hampered by a squeamish wife, and bound by lovin’ ties to beat down my real nature, but when you killed those men it was as if lightnin’ struck through the blackness of my despair. I never felt such joy.”
“Oh—Dad,” cried Jacqueline, tremulously. “We mustn’t grow savage.”
“We cain’t live in Arizona an’ turn our other cheeks to every blow.… Jackie, I’ll go tell Mother thet the first blood spilled on our ranch has turned the tide.… You talk to Brandon.”
Wade, left alone with the gi
