on the dead thieving, no foreign woman
from London, England, shall have you while you're mine. I heerd of
this Mrs. Trevor daring to call you her husband. She's not your
wife, she's not Mrs. Jesse Smith, she's not a married woman, but a
poor _thing_, and her child, _what's he_? I've had my revenge on
her, and you, and I'm coming to rub it in. I'm at Ashcroft, I am,
coming on the same coach as this letter, coming to live in your
home. If I don't love you, no other woman shall. It's Fancy Brooke,
the man you calls Bull Durham, what give you dead away, he, and the
news he got by mail, since you let him get off alive, you _fool_.
That ought to splash yer.

"And if I didn't love, d'ye reckon that I'd care?

"Your deserted true wife,
"POLLY SMITH.

"P. S.--I'll be to your ranch Monday."

_Kate's Narrative_

My husband was still at dinner when we heard a horseman come thundering
in, the old cargador, Pete Mathson, spurring a weary horse across the
yard. Jesse took the letter, and while he read, I had a strange awful
impression of days, months, years passing, a whirlwind of time. My man
was growing old before my eyes, and it is true that within a few hours
his hair was flecked with silver. When the letter fell from his hands he
walked away, making no sound at all.

I sat on my little stool and took the letter. The paper felt like
something very offensive, so that I had to force myself to read, and
even then without understanding one word, I went and washed my hands
and face, why I don't know, except that it was better not to make a
scene. I came back to my stool.

Pete stood in the doorway very nervous about his hat, as though he tried
to hide it away. I remember telling him quite gravely that I like to see
a hat.

"Cap Taylor, ma'am," he was saying, "told me to get here first by the
horse trail, so I rode hell-for-leather. They'll be another hour comin'
by road."

"Another hour?"

"A stranger's driving. Mebbe more'n an hour."

Then Jesse came back.

* * * * *

_Jesse's Narrative_

I found my lady seated on her stool, that letter in her hands, while
Pete, uneasy, clicked his spurs in the doorway. I asked if he'd take a
message.

"Burning the trail," he said.

"Say, if she comes, I'll kill her."

"Not that," my lady whispered, so I knelt down by her, and she stroked
my forehead.

"I didn't catch yo