and we drove
on. She was very white, Tommy,--for the matter o' that, she was always
one o' these very white women, that never got red in the face,--but she
never cried a whimper. Most wimin would have cried. It was queer, but
she never cried. I thought so at the time.

"She was very tall, with a lot o' light hair meandering down the back of
her head, as long as a deer-skin whip-lash, and about the color. She hed
eyes thet'd bore you through at fifty yards, and pooty hands and feet.
And when she kinder got out o' that stiff, narvous state she was in, and
warmed up a little, and got chipper, by G-d, sir, she was handsome,--she
was that!"

A little flushed and embarrassed at his own enthusiasm, he stopped, and
then said, carelessly, "They got off at Murphy's."

"Well," said Islington.

"Well, I used to see her often arter thet, and when she was alone she
allus took the box-seat. She kinder confided her troubles to me, how her
husband got drunk and abused her; and I didn't see much o' him, for
he was away in 'Frisco arter thet. But it was all square, Tommy,--all
square 'twixt me and her.

"I got a going there a good deal, and then one day I sez to myself,
'Bill, this won't do,' and I got changed to another route. Did you ever
know Jackson Filltree, Tommy?" said Bill, breaking off suddenly.

"No."

"Might have heerd of him, p'r'aps?"

"No," said Islington, impatiently.

"Jackson Filltree ran the express from White's out to Summit, 'cross the
North Fork of the Yuba. One day he sez to me, 'Bill, that's a mighty bad
ford at the North Fork.' I sez, 'I believe you, Jackson.' 'It'll git
me some day, Bill, sure,' sez he. I sez, 'Why don't you take the lower
ford?' 'I don't know,' sez he, 'but I can't.' So ever after, when I
met him, he sez, 'That North Fork ain't got me yet.' One day I was in
Sacramento, and up comes Filltree. He sez, 'I've sold out the express
business on account of the North Fork, but it's bound to get me yet,
Bill, sure'; and he laughs. Two weeks after they finds his body below
the ford, whar he tried to cross, comin' down from the Summit way. Folks
said it was foolishness: Tommy, I sez it was Fate! The second day arter
I was changed to the Placerville route, thet woman comes outer the
hotel above the stage-office. Her husband, she said, was lying sick in
Placerville; that's what she said; but it was Fate, Tommy, Fate. Three
months afterward, her husband takes an overdose of morphine for delirium
tre