nd the cow
puncher, standing aside for her to pass, lifted his hat wistfully
and spoke never a word. For a moment he looked after her with sombre
emotion; but the court-house and prison stood near and in sight, and,
as plain as if he had said so, I saw him suddenly feel she should not be
stared at going up those steps; it must be all alone, the pain and the
joy of that reprieve! He turned away with me, and after a few silent
steps said, "Wasted! all wasted!"

"Let us hope--" I began.

"You're not a fool," he broke in, roughly. "You don't hope anything."

"He'll start life elsewhere," said I.

"Elsewhere! Yes, keep starting till all the elsewheres know him like
Powder River knows him. But she! I have had to sit and hear her tell and
tell about him; all about back in Kentucky playin' around the farm, and
how she raised him after the old folks died. Then he got bigger and made
her sell their farm, and she told how it was right he should turn it
into money and get his half. I did not dare say a word, for she'd have
just bit my head off, and--and that would sure hurt me now!" Lin brought
up with a comical chuckle. "And she went to work, and he cleared out,
and no more seen or heard of him. That's for five years, and she'd given
up tracing him, when one morning she reads in the paper about how her
long-lost brother is convicted for forgery. That's the way she knows
he's not dead, and she takes her savings off her railroad salary and
starts for him. She was that hasty she thought it was Buffalo, New York,
till she got in the cars and read the paper over again. But she had
to go as far as Cincinnati, either way. She has paid every cent of the
money he stole." We had come to the bridge, and Lin jerked a stone
into the quick little river. "She's awful strict in some ways. Thought
Buffalo must be a wicked place because of the shops bein' open Sunday.
Now if that was all Buffalo's wickedness! And she thinks divorce is
mostly sin. But her heart is a shield for Nate."

"Her face is as beautiful as her actions," he added.

"Well," said I, "and would you make such a villain your brother-in-law?"

He whirled round and took both my shoulders. "Come walking!" he urged.
"I must talk some." So we followed the stream out of town towards the
mountains. "I came awful near asking her in the stage," said he.

"Goodness, Lin! give yourself time!"

"Time can't increase my feelings."

"Hers, man, hers! How many hours have you known her?"