The other groaned.
“There now, that’s right—don’t you see that hurts worse than killing?”
“But I certainly wish I could have got those other two that took us off into the sage-brush that night. I didn’t guess what for, but the first thing I knew the other boy was scratching, and kicking, and hollering, and like to have wriggled away, so the cuss that was with me ran up to help. Then I heard little John making kind of a squeally noise in his throat like he was being choked, and that was all I wanted. I legged it into the sage-brush. I heard them swearing and coming after me, and ran harder, and, what saved me, I tripped and fell down and hurt myself, so I lay still and they lost track of me. I was scared, I promise you that; but after they got off a ways I worked in the other direction by spells till I got to a little wady, and by sunup they weren’t in sight any longer. When I saw the Indians coming along I wasn’t a bit scared. I knew they weren’t Mormons.”
“I used to pray that you might come back and kill me.”
“I used to wish I would grow faster so I could. I was always laying out to do it.”
“But see how I’ve been punished. Look at me—I’m fifty. I ought to be in my prime. See how I’ve been burnt out.”
“But look here, Mister, what about this girl? Do you think you’ve been doing right by keeping her here?”
“No, no! it was a wrong as great as the other.”
“Why, they’re even passing remarks about her mother, those that don’t know where you got her,—saying it was some one you never married, because the book shows your first wife was this one-handed woman here.”
“I know, I know it. I meant to let her go back at first, but she took hold of me, and her father and mother were both dead.”