ad. Ef you rather have the chance of getting the rest in cash,
you'll let up on her." "You don't suppose," returned Mrs. Patterson
contemptuously, "that she's got anything but what that man of
hers--Poindexter--lets her have?" "The sheriff says," retorted
Patterson surlily, "that she's notified him that she claims the
_rancho_ as a gift from her husband three years ago, and she's in
_possession_ now, and was so when the execution was out. It don't make
no matter," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "who's got a full hand as
long as _we_ ain't got the cards to chip in. I wouldn't 'a' minded it,"
he continued meditatively, "ef Spence Tucker had dropped a hint to me
afore he put out." "And I suppose," said Mrs. Patterson angrily, "you'd
have put out too?" "I reckon," said Patterson simply.

Twice or thrice during the evening he referred, more or less directly,
to this lack of confidence shown by his late debtor and employer, and
seemed to feel it more keenly than the loss of property. He confided
his sentiments quite openly to the sheriff in possession, over the
whiskey and euchre with which these gentlemen avoided the difficulties
of their delicate relations. He brooded over it as he handed the keys
of the shop to the sheriff when they parted for the night, and was
still thinking of it when the house was closed, everybody gone to bed,
and he was fetching a fresh jug of water from the well. The moon was at
times obscured by flying clouds, the _avant-couriers_ of the regular
evening shower. He was stooping over the well, when he sprang suddenly
to his feet again. "Who's there?" he demanded sharply.

"Hush!" said a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper of
the wind in the palisades of the corral. But, indistinct as it was, it
was the voice of a man he was thinking of as far away, and it sent a
thrill of alternate awe and pleasure through his pulses.

He glanced quickly round. The moon was hidden by a passing cloud, and
only the faint outlines of the house he had just quitted were visible.
"Is that you, Spence?" he said tremulously.

"Yes," replied the voice, and a figure dimly emerged from the corner of
the corral.

"Lay low, lay low, for God's sake," said Patterson, hurriedly throwing
himself upon the apparition. "The sheriff and his posse are in there."

"But I must speak to you a moment," said the figure.

"Wait," said Patterson, glancing toward the building. Its blank,
shutterless windows revealed no i