If he didn't fall in love he would have never come back near the end of the film. Because, what man is going to dishonor himself so that he comes back in front of the man that took a woman away from him... and warns her to save her life?

Marshal Bill Tilghman in Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981) and mob boss Sam Giancana in the TV miniseries Sinatra (1992). He never knew his father a vaudevillian who had been part of a traveling song-and-dance team with Steiger's mother (who subsequently left show business). Signing a studio contract at that time would "pigeon-hole" Steiger as to the roles he would later play and image portrayed on screen; those were two things Steiger objected to throughout his career.