have seen that McLean's hand was trembling as he watched her leaning on
his arms.

"Oh yes, she was willing to talk to me!" The woman uttered another
sudden laugh. "I knowed about her--all. Things get heard of in this
world. Did not all about you and me come to her knowledge in its own
good time, and it done and gone how many years? My, my, my!" Her voice
grew slow and absent. She stopped for a moment, and then more rapidly
resumed: "It had travelled around about you and her like it always will
travel. It was known how you had asked her, and how she had told you she
would have you, and then told you she would not when she learned about
you and me. Folks that knowed yus and folks that never seen yus in their
lives had to have their word about her facing you down you had another
wife, though she knowed the truth about me being married to Lusk and him
livin' the day you married me, and ten and twenty marriages could
not have tied you and me up, no matter how honest you swore to no
hinderance. Folks said it was plain she did not want yus. It give me
a queer feelin' to see that girl. It give me a wish to tell her to her
face that she did not love yus and did not know love. Wait--wait, Lin!
Yu' never hit me yet."

"No," said the cow-puncher. "Nor now. I'm not Lusk."

"Yu' looked so--so bad, Lin. I never seen yu' look so bad in old days.
Wait, now, and I must tell it. I wished to laugh in her face and say,
'What do you know about love?' So I walked in. Lin, she does love yus!"

"Yes," breathed McLean.

"She was sittin' back in her room at Separ. Not the ticket-office,
but--"

"I know," the cow-puncher said. His eyes were burning.

"It's snug, the way she has it. 'Good-afternoon,' I says. 'Is this Miss
Jessamine Buckner?'"

At his sweetheart's name the glow in Lin's eyes seemed to quiver to a
flash.

"And she spoke pleasant to me--pleasant and gay-like. But a woman can
tell sorrow in a woman's eyes. And she asked me would I rest in her room
there, and what was my name. 'They tell me you claim to know it better
than I do,' I says. 'They tell me you say it is Mrs. McLean.' She
put her hand on her breast, and she keeps lookin' at me without never
speaking. 'Maybe I am not so welcome now,' I says. 'One minute,' says
she. 'Let me get used to it.' And she sat down.

"Lin, she is a square-lookin' girl. I'll say that for her.

"I never thought to sit down onced myself; I don't know why, but I kep'
a-standing, and I took i