“Great God!” he stammered.
“You’ve found it?” I asked: and I knew that he had, even while he was polishing it against his sleeve.
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Look at it. Tell me. I can’t see. What is it?”
His hand shook as with palsy as he extended it to me; then the half of a silver coin, plucked from the loosened grip of skeleton fingers; the date——
“Give it to me,” he cried, and snatched at it.
The date, 1866; and the legend, upon the side less tarnished, “—Till We Meet Again.” He fumbled in his pocket. The two halves matched sufficiently—“God Be With You Till We Meet Again.”
“What you’ve been looking for?” I prompted.
He stared dazedly at me.
“Looking for! A thousand times. A thousand years. No, no; not that long, but more than fifty years. Denver, Cheyenne, Salt Lake, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Helena, Laramie, Creede, Deadwood, Leadville, Dodge City—wherever men and women of her kind gathered in her day and his I’ve searched again and again. Not for her! She must be dead, and long dead. But for word of this; for this, or trace of this. It was mine. I gave it. And now, here! How came it here? Those bones won’t speak.” He angrily kicked them. “Speak! What were you doing with this half coin? Where was she? Were you man or woman?”
“Woman, Mr. Brown,” said I.