t out! What in h--l is busted now?"

"Parson."

Here the head rolled and the arms swung more than ever, and the man
seemed in dreadful agony of mind.

The Parson sprang across the room and caught him by the shoulder. He
shook him till his teeth rattled like quartz in a mill.

"The--the man in black," gasped the Jumper. "The black man, on the black
horse, with a white choker." The Parson looked blank, and staggered
back, as the man, gasping for breath, concluded: "Well, he's gone back;
and he won't marry yer. Cause why, he says Sandy says yer got one wife
now any how, in Missouri, and maybe two."

The Parson sunk into a seat, dropped his face in his hands for a moment,
trembled only a little, and arose pale and silent. He did not swear at
all. I am perfectly certain he did not swear. I know we all spoke of
that for a long time afterward, and considered it one of the most
remarkable things in all the strange conduct of this man.

When the Parson arose the Jumper shook himself loose from the counter,
and tilted across to the other side of the room, to give him place.

The stricken man put his hands on the counter, peeked over the
bar-keeper's shoulder at his favorite bottle, as if mournfully to a
friend, but said not a word. He emptied a glass, and then, without
looking right or left, opened the door, and went straight up to the
Parsonage. The Parsonage was the name the boys gave to the cottage on
the hill among the trees.

"Gone for his two little bull-pups," said Stubbs. That was what the
Parson called his silver-mounted derringers.

"There will be a funeral at the Forks to-morrow," gasped the Jumper.

Here the German undertaker arose cheerfully, and went down to his shop.

"Well, Sandy is no sardine. Bet your boots Sandy ain't no sardine!" said
Stubbs. "And, any how, he's got the start just a little, if the Parson
does nail him. For he's won her heart; and that's a heap, I think, for
wimmen's mighty scace in the mines--sumthin' to die for, you bet."

CHAPTER XII.

GRIT.

The Parson was absent for hours, and the Howling Wilderness began to be
impatient.

"He's a heelin' himself like a fighting-cock," said Stubbs; "and if
Sandy don't go to kingdom come with his boots on, then chaw me up for a
shrimp."

The man here went to the door, opened it, put his head out in the frosty
weather, and peered up the creek for Sandy, and across the creek for the
Parson, but neither was in sight.

The "Gay Roo