Still one point favored him, and it was that travelers were not likely to come along during the storm.

Jennie slept while Duane watched.

The saving of this girl meant more to him than any task he had ever assumed.

First it had been partly from a human feeling to succor an unfortunate woman, and partly a motive to establish clearly to himself that he was no outlaw.

Lately, however, had come a different sense, a strange one, with something personal and warm and protective in it.
As he looked down upon her, a slight, slender girl with bedraggled dress and disheveled hair, her face, pale and quiet, a little stern in sleep, and her long, dark lashes lying on her cheek, he seemed to see her fragility, her prettiness, her femininity as never before.