Arizona paused and took a fresh chew. Then he went on.
“Guess you ain’t never got hitched?”
Tresler denied the impeachment. “Not yet,” he said.
“Hah! Guess it makes a heap o’ diff’rence.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Sobers a fellow. Makes him feel like settling down.”
“Wal, maybe.”
“And where’s your wife living now?” Tresler asked, after another pause.
“Can’t rightly say.” There was a nasty sharpness in the manner Arizona jerked his answer out. “Y’ see, it’s this a-ways. I guess I didn’t amount to a deal as a married man. Leastways, that’s how she got figgerin’ after a whiles. Guess I’d sp’iled her life some. I ’lows I wus allus a mean cuss. An’ she wus real happy bakin’ hash. Guess I druv her to drinkin’ at the s’loon, too, which made me hate myself wuss. Wal, I jest did wot I could to smooth things an’ kep goin’. I got punchin’ cows agin, an’ give her every cent o’ my wages; but it wa’n’t to be.” The man’s voice was husky, and he paused to recover himself. And then hurried on as though to get the story over as soon as possible. “Guess I wus out on the ‘round-up’ some weeks, an’ then I come back to find her gone—plumb gone. Mebbe she’d got lonesome; I can’t say. Yup, the shack wus empty, an’ the buckboard gone, an’ the blankets, an’ most o’ the cookin’ fixin’s. It wus the neighbors put me wise. Neighbors mostly puts you wise. They acted friendly. Ther’d bin a feller come ’long from Alberta, a pretty tough Breed feller. He went by the name o’ ‘Tough’ McCulloch.”
Tresler started. But Arizona was still staring out at the distant prairie, and the movement escaped him.