en Polly got to be postmistress, she
handled Jesse's letters, held the envelopes in the steam of a kettle
until they'd open, and gummed them when she was through--if she sent
them on. She found out who he dealt with and got them warned not to
trust him. There's no letters now."

"She wouldn't dare!"

"No? You remember he sent you that book you wrote together at the
ranch?"

"You know that!"

"I read it at Spite House. She had a heap of fun in the barroom with
Jesse's letter. Her cat eyes flamed like mad."

"There was no letter."

"She made a paper house of it, and set it alight to show how Jesse
burned her home in Abilene. She was drunk, too, that night. But that's
nothin'. Glad you didn't hear them yarns she put about the country.
Jesse wasn't never what I'd call popular, but he ain't even spoken to
now by any white man. His riders quit, his Chinamen cleared out. Then
she bought Brown's ferry, had the cable took away, the scow sent adrift,
and Surly Brown packed off. She'd heard that Jesse lived by his rifle,
so she's cut him off from his hunting grounds. There's nothing left to
hunt east of the Fraser."

"He's starving?"

"Shouldn't wonder."

"Billy!"

"Yes'm."

"How soon can I get a ship?"

"None before Saturday."

"Go on. Tell me the worst."

"The signs may read coarse weather or typhoon. I dunno which yet. She's
been locatin' settlers along them old clearings in the black pine and,
judging by samples I'd seen, she swept the jails."

"Why more than one?" I asked, "why all that expense when one would do?"

"Who'd blackmail Polly afterward? She's no fool. She says straight out
in public she'd shoot the man who killed him. But them thugs is planted
in hungry land, they see his pastures the best in the district, and you
know as well as I do he's a danger to all robbers. Why, even when
sportsmen and tourists comes along his old gun gets excited. He hates
the sight of strangers, anyway.

"Now, all these years she's goading him to loose out and break the law.
That's why she's got the constable protecting her at Spite House. Once
she can get him breaking the law she has all them thugs--so many dollars
a head--as witnesses. It ain't murder she wants. She says that when she
went to his ranch that time Jesse sent her a message by old Mathson, 'I
won't let her off with death.'

"She won't let him off with death. Twice she has put him to shame in
public. She'll never rest until she gets him hanged. Ther