ickens? Him? Then he'll have to steal 'em!" And we all laughed
together.

"You won't make me go back to Laramie, will you?" spoke Billy, suddenly,
from his stool.

"I'd like to see anybody try to make you?" exclaimed Jessamine. "Who
says any such thing?"

"Lin did," said Billy.

Jessamine looked at her lover reproachfully. "What a way to tease him!"
she said. "And you so kind. Why, you've hurt his feelings!"

"I never thought," said Lin the boisterous. "I wouldn't have."

"Come sit here, Billy," said Jessamine. "Whenever he teases, you tell
me, and we'll make him behave."

"Honest?" persisted Billy.

"Shake hands on it," said Jessamine.

"Cause I'll go to school. But I won't go back to Laramie for no one. And
you're a-going to be Lin's wife, honest?"

"Honest! Honest!" And Jessamine, laughing, grew red beside her lamp.

"Then I guess mother can't never come back to Lin, either," stated
Billy, relieved.

Jessamine let fall the child's hand.

"Cause she liked him onced, and he liked her."

Jessamine gazed at Lin.

"It's simple," said the cow-puncher. "It's all right."

But Jessamine sat by her lamp, very pale.

"It's all right," repeated Lin in the silence, shifting his foot and
looking down. "Once I made a fool of myself. Worse than usual."

"Billy?" whispered Jessamine. "Then you--But his name is Lusk!"

"Course it is," said Billy. "Father and mother are living in Laramie."

"It's all straight," said the cow-puncher. "I never saw her till three
years ago. I haven't anything to hide, only--only--only it don't come
easy to tell."

I rose. "Miss Buckner," said I, "he will tell you. But he will not tell
you he paid dearly for what was no fault of his. It has been no secret.
It is only something his friends and his enemies have forgotten."

But all the while I was speaking this, Jessamine's eyes were fixed on
Lin, and her face remained white.

I left the girl and the man and the little boy together, and crossed to
the hotel. But its air was foul, and I got my roll of camp blankets
to sleep in the clean night, if sleeping-time should come; meanwhile
I walked about in the silence To have taken a wife once in good faith,
ignorant she was another's, left no stain, raised no barrier. I could
have told Jessamine the same old story myself--or almost; but what had
it to do with her at all? Why need she know? Reasoning thus, yet with
something left uncleared by reason that I could not state, I watched
th