letter
you overlooked."

He pawed over the pile purposefully and thrust a pale blue envelope
before Hardy--a letter from Kitty Bonnair. And his eyes took on a
cold, fighting glint as he observed the fatal handwriting.

"By God," he cried, "I hain't figured out yet what struck me! I never
spoke a rough word to that girl in my life, and she certainly gimme a
nice kiss when she went away. But jest as soon as I write her a love
letter, w'y she--she--W'y hell, Rufe, I wouldn't talk that way to a
sheep-herder if he didn't _know_ no better. Now you jest read
that"--he fumbled in his pocket and slammed a crumpled letter down
before his partner--"and tell me if I'm wrong! No, I want you to do
it. Well, I'll read it to you, then!"

He ripped open the worn envelope, squared his elbows across the table,
and opened the scented inclosure defiantly, but before he could read
it Hardy reached out suddenly and covered it with his hand.

"Please don't, Jeff," he said, his face pale and drawn. "It was all my
fault--I should have told you--but please don't read it to me. I--I
can't stand it."

"Oh, I don't know," retorted Creede coldly. "I reckon you can stand it
if I can. Now suppose you wrote a real nice letter--the best you
knowed how--to your girl, and she handed you somethin' like this: 'My
dear Mr. Creede, yore amazin' letter--' Here, what ye doin'?"

"I won't listen to it!" cried Hardy, snatching the letter away,
"it's--"

"Now lookee here, Rufe Hardy," began Creede, rising up angrily from
his chair, "I want to tell you right now that you've got to read that
letter or lick me--and I doubt if you can do that, the way I happen to
be feelin'. You got me into this in the first place and now, by God,
you'll see it out! Now you _read_ that letter and tell me if I'm
wrong!"

He reared up his head as he spoke and Hardy saw the same fierce gleam
in his eyes that came when he harried the sheep; but there was
something beside that moved his heart to pity. It was the lurking
sadness of a man deep hurt, who fights the whole world in his anguish;
the protest of a soul in torment, demanding, like Job, that some one
shall justify his torture.

"All right, Jeff," he said, "I will read it--only--only don't crowd me
for an answer."

He spread the letter before him on the table and saw in a kind of haze
the angry zigzag characters that galloped across the page, the words
whose meaning he did not as yet catch, so swiftly did his thoughts