"When I heard that she had borne him a daughter I wrote her a letter, which took me a month to compose, and which I tore up. One day a story came to me that made me saddle my horse to ride down and kill him—and, mind you, I was a man who made pets of little wild, trusting things. But I knew she would surely send for me when her pain became too great, so I uncinched my gear and hung it up, and waited and waited and waited. Three long, endless years I waited, almost within sound of her voice, without a word from her, without a glimpse of her, and every hour of that time went by as slowly as if I had held my breath. Then she called to me, and I went.
"I tell you, I was thankful that day for the fortune that had made me take good care of my horse, for I rode like Death on a wind-storm. It grew moonlight as I raced down the valley, and the foam from the animal's muzzle lodged on my clothes, and made me laugh and swear that the morning sun would show Dan Bennett's blood in its place. I rode through the streets of Mesa, where they lived, and past the lights of his big saloon, where I heard the sound of devil's revelry and a shrill-voiced woman singing—a woman the like of which he had tried to make my Merridy. I never skulked or sneaked in those days, and no man ever made me take back roads, so I came up to his house from the front and tied my horse to his gate-post. She heard me on the steps and opened the door.
"'You sent for me,' said I. 'Where is he?' But he had gone away to a neighboring camp, and wouldn't be back until morning, at which I felt the way a thief must feel, for I'd hoped to meet him in his own house, and I wasn't the kind to go calling when the husband was out. I couldn't think very clearly, however, because of the change in her. She was so thin and worn and sad, sadder than any woman I'd ever seen, and she wasn't the girl I'd known three years before. I guess I'd changed a heap myself; anyhow, that was the first thing she spoke about, and the tears came into her eyes as she breathed:
"'Poor boy! poor boy! You took it very hard, didn't you?'"
"'You sent for me,' said I. 'Which road did he take?'"
"'There's nothing you can do to him,' she answered back. 'I sent for you to make sure that you still love me."
"'Did you ever doubt it?' said I, at which she began to cry, sobbing like a woman who has worn out all emotion.
"'Can you feel the same after what I've made you suffer?' she said, and I reckon she must have read the answer in my eyes; for I never was much good at talking, and the sight of her, so changed, had taken the speech out of me, leaving nothing but aches and pains and ashes in its place. When she saw what she wished to know, she told me the story, the whole miserable story, that I'd heard enough of to suspect. Why she'd married the other man she couldn't explain herself, except that it was a woman's whim—I had stayed away and he had come the oftener—part pique and part the man's dare-devil fascination, I reckon; but a month had shown her how she really stood, and had shown him, too. Likewise, she saw the sort of man he was and the kind of life he lived. At last he got rough and cruel to her, trying every way to break her spirit; and even the baby didn't stop him—it made him worse, if anything—till he swore he'd make them both the kind he was, for her goodness seemed to rile and goad him; and, having lived with the kind of woman you have to beat, he tried it on her. Then she knew her fight was hopeless, and she sent for me."
"'He's a fiend,' she told me. 'I've stood all I can. He'll make a bad woman of me as sure as he will of the little one, if I stay on here, so I have decided to go and take her with me.'"
"'Where?' said I."