epped down into the ditch, deep with mire, and the grim
humor of his nickname in the West, "Hell-in-the-Mud," fell upon him like
a cowboy's rope. He drew himself out, threw down a handful of grass that
he had pulled up by the roots, and strode on, through the green slop of
the low land. As he turned in at the gate, to pass through the hickory
grove, he saw the light of a lantern moving about in Mrs. Stuvic's
barnyard. He spoke to a dog that came scampering to meet him; the light
shot upward, came toward him; and he recognized the old woman,
bareheaded, with the rain pattering on her gray hair.

"Is that you, Bill? Now what are you pokin' round in this rain for? Come
over to the house and get your supper."

"No, I must go home."

"Home? Why, you haven't got any home and never will have."

"That's true," he agreed.

"Not till you go where we took my old sister to-day," she said, letting
the lantern down till her face was in the dark. "And just to think it
should have come as it did, while I was talkin' about her! I'd been
thinkin' about her all day, and I knowed somethin' was goin' to happen.
But come on in the house, and don't be standin' here in the rain like a
fool. Get away, Jack. I do think he's got less sense than any dog I ever
set eyes on. Now, if you do put your muddy feet on me I'll cut your
throat. You just dare to do it, you triflin' whelp! Are you goin' to the
house with me, Bill?"

"You're not afraid, are you?" he asked, now that her fear of the dead
cat was gone.

"Now you keep still. I'm not afraid of the devil himself. But this is
just the sort of a night for me to die. Yes, I'll tell you that."

"I thought you were to die on a cold night, with the wagons creaking
along the road."

"That was the plan, but it has been changed. Now I'm goin' to die when
the ground is soaked. You don't know Peterson, do you? Well, no matter.
But he lived just down the road there not long ago, and a meaner
neighbor never breathed. I caught him drivin' his turkeys into my tomato
patch. Yes. And his well went dry, and he come to my house and wanted to
haul off water in barrels. Yes. And I wouldn't let him. And what did he
say? He said he'd see my grave full of water. And now just think of what
I've had to contend with all my life. Think of me lyin' there in the
water, with that feller prancin' around!"

"But the chances are that you'll outlive him, Mrs. Stuvic."

"Yes, you bet, that's what I'm goin' to do," she sai