rt of the game. She has set in to make you
do your courtin' over ag'in, an' you'll find that about as unnatural as
wearin' yore vest under yore shirt. No man can court the same woman
twice an' put his heart in the job, but a woman is just so constituted
that she could _have_ it done over an' over by one or a dozen men. I
reckon, as Scriptur' says, it is more blessed to give than to receive,
but a man 'u'd rather not be blessed in the time to come than to have to
make eyes an' say sweet things when he ain't feelin' jest right. Now,
I'll turn back; I jest walked out with you to give you what advice I
could. Git the bit in yore jaw an' pull yore way steady, an' after a
while she'll git tired an' quit naggin' you."

That morning, near noon, as Henley was busy at his work in the rear of
the store, Cahews came back to him with a mild look of surprise on his
face.

"Your wife is out in front in her uncle Ben's carriage," he announced.
"She's dressed for travel--got three or four valises in with her.
Warren, must have sent over after her; the team looks like it's been on
the go for several hours."

Henley found her in the luxurious seat behind the higher one on which
the colored driver, in a battered silk top-hat, sat holding the reins
over a handsome pair of blacks. She looked at him coldly as, hatless and
coatless, he hurried out to her.

"What's this?" he asked, half playfully. "You ain't going to vamoose the
ranch, are you?"

"Uncle Ben's sick," she answered, stiffly. "He sent a note by Ned. He
didn't say for me to come, but he hinted at it several times. I'd show
you what he wrote, but we haven't time to spare. I packed up as quick as
I could. We'll stop at the half-way house for dinner."

"Ben hain't dangerous, is he?" Henley asked, his foot on the
brass-tipped hub of the fore-wheel, his hand on the arm of the seat she
occupied.

"I don't know whether he is or not," the speaker pulled down the veil
under her hat-brim and avoided her husband's eyes, "but he's lonely and
heartbroken over the way that unprincipled woman has treated him, and he
needs petting and nursing and some company in that big, gloomy house to
take his mind off his trouble and humiliation."

"He ought never to have got mixed up with her." Henley was recalling
Wrinkle's sage remarks. "Dealing with a woman you've known all her life
is risky enough, without going as far as Ben did for an opportunity to
get slapped in the face. But he ought to be t