when she found
out how he had lied to Whitman an' mighty near killed him; but just all
that happened, before she burned out her brand and skipped, I don't
know to this day, but they was both purty high-headed an' nervy in
their youth, an' I've often suspected that Jabez' conscience didn't get
to workin' smooth until after he was left alone with the child on his
hands. It sometimes happens that way.

Well, anyhow, when she had left him she had gone to the southern part
of California, where she'd got a job teachin' school. Whitman had
located her, an' when her health gave out he had sent her money without
lettin' her know where it came from. Whitman had follered minin' till
his wife died, an' then he got to speculatin' in stocks, finally
gettin' cleaned out full an' proper, an' then he started to gamblin' in
earnest. It was from him that Jim had picked up most of his idees about
business an' gamblin'. When Whitman himself had died he had turned
Barbie's mother over to Jim.

She was livin' on a ranch in northern Colorado at this time, on account
of her health. When Jim got cleaned out by the cattle crowd, an' opened
his joint in Laramie, he brought her over to keep house an' be company
for him. He pertended to be the son of a wild uncle she'd had, an' he
fixed up a believable tale to go with it. All the while he'd been at
the Diamond Dot he had supposed that she was Whitman's sister--she went
by her maiden name of Miss Garrison, an' she had never told him her
full story, simply hintin' enough at times to let him know that she had
gone through the mill.

He had never pieced things together until I had sent him my letter, an'
then he guessed how it was, an' puttin' what I told him onto what she
an' Whitman had told him, he saw it all. He didn't know what had made
her leave Judson, or rather Jordan; but he said he was positive it was
his fault, as she was some the finest woman he had ever met, exceptin'
of course her own daughter.

We talked it all over there in the starlight, until ol' Melisse came
an' called us in. I didn't want to go; I was tryin' to cut myself out
of the game entirely an' forget that I even existed; for the' was a cry
in my heart that wouldn't hush, an' I wanted to be alone; but when Jim
insisted I braced up an' went in.

Ol' Jabez looked a heap better, but still shaky; his wife had a tender
half sad smile on her face, while Barbie was radiant with the joy she
had waited for so long; she had kept h