Before Cinnabar Joe could fire again at the fleeing Purdy, his wife reached the door of the cabin and knocked his gun-barrel up so that the bullet sped harmlessly into the air. "Don't! Don't Joe!" she screamed, "he said—there was others, an' they'd——"
"I don't care a damn what he said! If the others don't spill it, he will. It ain't no use, an' I'd ruther git it over with."
Jennie noticed the dull hopelessness of the tone and her very soul seemed to die within her. "Oh, what is it, Joe?" she faltered, "what's Purdy got on you? What you gone an' done? Tell me, Joe!" The man laid the six-gun on the table and faced her with set lips. "Wait!" she cried before he could speak, "he said they was a woman—in the coulee. They'll be plenty of time to tell me, after you've got her here. Hurry! He said she'd rode a long ways. Chances is she ain't had nothin' to eat all day. An' while you're gone I'll git things fixed for her." Even as she talked, Jennie was busy at the stove, and without a word Cinnabar left the room, crossed the creek, and walked rapidly toward the mouth of the coulee.
"It ain't no use," he repeated bitterly, "but, I'll git Purdy first—or he'll git me!"
Back in the cabin Jennie completed her arrangements, and stepping to the door, stood with an arm against the jamb and allowed her eyes to travel slowly over the new horse corral and the unfinished stable. Joe's tools lay as he had left them when she had interrupted his work to give him the sandwich. Her fists clenched and she bit her lip to keep back the tears. The wind rustled the curtain in the window and she caught her breath in a great dry sob. "It is all a dream. It was too good to be true—oh—well." A horse splashed through the creek and she saw Cinnabar coming toward her leading a blaze-faced buckskin. A woman was lashed in the saddle, her feet secured by means of a rope that passed beneath the horse's belly, her hands lashed to the horn, and her body held in place by means of other strands of rope that passed from horn to cantle. Her hat was gone and she sagged limply forward, her disarranged hair falling over her face to mingle with the mane of the horse. She looked like a dead woman. Hastening to meet them, Jennie pushed aside the hair and peered up into the white face: "My Lord!" she cried, "it's—it's her!"
Cinnabar stared: "Do you know her?" he asked in surprise.
"Know her! Of course I know her! It's the pilgrim's girl—that he shot Purdy over. An' a pity he didn't kill him! That Tex Benton, he got 'em acrost the bad lands—an' I heard they got married over in Timber City."
"Who Tex?"
"No, the pilgrim, of course! Get to work now an' cut them ropes an' don't stand 'round askin' fool questions. Carry her in an' lay her on the bed, an' get the whisky, an' see if that water's boilin' an' pull off her boots, an' stick some more wood in the stove, an' then you clear out till I get her ondressed an' in bed!" And be it to the everlasting credit of Cinnabar Joe that he carried out these commands, each and several, in the order of their naming, and then he walked slowly toward the stable and sat down upon the newly hewn sill and rolled a cigarette. His tools lay ready to his hand but he stared at them without enthusiasm. When the cigarette was finished he rolled another.
In the cabin Alice Endicott slowly opened her eyes. They swept the room wildly and fixed upon Jennie's face with a look of horror. "There, deary, you're all right now," Jennie patted her cheek reassuringly: "You're all right," she repeated. "Don't you remember me—Jennie Dodds, that was? At the Wolf River Hotel?"