No hope.

Ruin her life! Why ?" I could explain this strange agitation in Steele in no other way except that realization had brought keen suffering as incomprehensible as it was painful.

I could not tell if it came from suddenly divined love for Diane Sampson equally with a poignant conviction that his fate was to wreck her.

But I did see that he needed to speak out the brutal truth.
"Steele, old man, you'll ruin Diane Sampson, because, as arrest looks improbable to me, you'll have to kill her father." "My God! Why, why?
Say it!" "Because Sampson is the leader of the Linrock gang of rustlers." That night before we parted we had gone rather deeply into the plan of action for the immediate future.
First I gave Steele my earnest counsel and then as stiff an argument as I knew how to put up, all anent the absolute necessity of his eternal vigilance.

If he got shot in a fair encounter with his enemies--well, that was a Ranger's risk and no disgrace.