"I bet you was, old feller."
"'Farewell to you,' I says, and the tears come in her eyes, and she says to me—wipin' 'em on a han'kerchief I give her, nothing any Welshman ever done for her, and you can bank on that Duke—she says to me: 'I'll always think of you as a gentleman, Mr. Wilson.' I wasn't onto what that Welshman told her then; I didn't know the straight of it till she wrote and told me after she got to Wyoming."
"It was too bad, old feller."
"Wasn't it hell? I was so sore when she wrote, the way she'd believed that little sawed-off snorter with rock dust in his hair, I never answered that letter for a long time. Well, I got another letter from her about a year after that. She was still in the same place, doin' well. Her name was Nettie Morrison."
"Maybe it is yet, Taterleg."
"Maybe. I've been a-thinkin' I'd go out there and look her up, and if she ain't married, me and her we might let bygones be bygones and hitch. I could open a oyster parlor out there on the dough I've saved up; I'd dish 'em up and she'd wait on the table and take in the money. We'd do well, Duke."
"I bet you would."
"I got the last letter she wrote—I'll let you see it, Duke."
Taterleg made a rummaging in the chuck wagon, coming out presently with the letter. He stood contemplating it with tender eye.
"Some writer, ain't she, Duke?"