Presently Lee softly spoke:
"Sis, if, as I allows, you're Netty, you shore did Mat a good turn killin' him 'fore he saw you. Would 'a hurt him pow'ful to see you in this bunch; hurts us 'bout enough, I reckon."
Roused from contemplation of her deed, the girl rose to her knees, still clinging to Circuit's stiffening fingers, and sobbingly murmured, in a voice so low the awed group had to bend to hear her:
"Yes, I'm Netty, and every day while I live I shall thank God Mat never knew. This is my husband lying dead beneath Mat. They made me do it—my family—nagged me to marry Tom, then a rich horse-breeder of our county, till home was such a hell I couldn't stand it. It was four long years ago, and never since have I had the heart to own to Mat the truth. His letters were my greatest joy, and they breathed a love I little have deserved.
"Reckon that's dead right, Netty," broke in Bill Ball; "hain't a bit shore myself airy critter that ever stood up in petticoats deserved a love big as Circuit's. Excuse us, please."
And at a sign from Bill, six bent and gently lifted the body and bore it away into the town.
In the twilight of an Autumn day that happened to be the twenty-second anniversary of Circuit's death, two grizzled old ranchmen, ambling slowly out of Mancos along the Dolores trail, rode softly up to a corner of the burying ground and stopped. There within, hard by, a woman, bent and gnarled and gray as the sage-brush about her, was tenderly decking a grave with piñon wreaths.
"Hope to never cock another gun, Bill Ball, ef she ain't thar ag'in!"
"She shore is, Lee," answered Bill; "provin' we-all mislaid no bets reconsiderin', an' stakin' Sorrel-top to a little ranch and brand."
Thus, happily, does time sweeten the bitterest memories.