along with her grip and no Welshman in a mile of her to
give her a hand. I went up and tipped my hat, but I never smiled, Duke,
for I was sour over the way that girl she'd treated me. I just took hold
of that grip and carried it to the depot for her and tipped my hat to
her once more. 'You're a gentleman, whatever they say of you, Mr.
Wilson,' she said."

"_She_ did?"

"She did, Duke. 'You're a gentleman, Mr. Wilson, whatever they say of
you,' she said. Them was her words, Duke. 'Farewell to _you_,' I said,
distant and high-mighty, for I was hurt, Duke--I was hurt right down to
the bone."

"I bet you was, old feller."

"'Farewell to _you_,' I says, and the tears come in her eyes, and she
says to me--wipin' 'em on a han'kerchief I give her, nothing any
Welshman ever done for her, and you can bank on that Duke--she says to
me: 'I'll always think of you as a gentleman, Mr. Wilson.' I wasn't onto
what that Welshman told her then; I didn't know the straight of it till
she wrote and told me after she got to Wyoming."

"It was too bad, old feller."

"Wasn't it hell? I was so sore when she wrote, the way she'd believed
that little sawed-off snorter with rock dust in his hair, I never
answered that letter for a long time. Well, I got another letter from
her about a year after that. She was still in the same place, doin'
well. Her name was Nettie Morrison."

"Maybe it is yet, Taterleg."

"Maybe. I've been a-thinkin' I'd go out there and look her up, and if
she ain't married, me and her we might let bygones _be_ bygones and
hitch. I could open a oyster parlor out there on the dough I've saved
up; I'd dish 'em up and she'd wait on the table and take in the money.
We'd do well, Duke."

"I _bet_ you would."

"I got the last letter she wrote--I'll let you see it, Duke."

Taterleg made a rummaging in the chuck wagon, coming out presently with
the letter. He stood contemplating it with tender eye.

"Some writer, ain't she, Duke?"

"She sure is a fine writer, Taterleg--writes like a schoolma'am."

"She can talk like one, too. See--'Lander, Wyo.' It's a little town
about as big as my hat, from the looks of it on the map, standin' away
off up there alone. I could go to it with my eyes shut, straight as a
bee."

"Why don't you write to her, Taterleg?" The Duke could scarcely keep
back a smile, so diverting he found this affair of the Welshman, the
waitress, and the cook. More comedy than romance, he thought, Taterleg
on