"A dainty blush beautified her cheek, but she did not turn away her eyes as she answered:
"'Why, yes. As your wife, of course. I have always thought you meant it should be. Always lately, I mean.'
"So she had understood before I had known myself. She had been simply waiting, while I had been worrying. I had but to reach forth my hand and grasp my happiness. Well, I had been an ass not to know, but at last the joy was mine.
"Be sure there was little further delay. The wedding was simple yet impressive. Cowboys came from miles around, and one and all they kissed the bride. We had a feast on the grass, the tables extending a quarter of a mile, and all were welcome. There were no cards of invitation; all within fifty miles were my neighbors, and all neighbors were expected at the cowboy's wedding. The ceremony was held out in the open air, and five hundred men stood with bared heads as the worthy father gave me my treasure and declared her mine before God and them.
"Thus Juanita came to be mine own. First given to me by that Providence who rules the Universe, when the unguided steps of my horse carried me to the tiny bundle lying on a boundless plain, and lastly given to me with her own consent by the worthy man who united us in the name of the Father of us all. Was she not mine then, and thenceforward forever? Could any man rightly take her from me? You shall hear.
"A year passed. A year of happiness such as poets prate of and ardent men and maids hope for, but rarely realize. Then the serpent entered my Eden. The tempter came, in the form of this man who tells you that his name is Odell, but who lies when he tells you so. He was from the North, and he had a fine form and a fair face. Fair, I mean, in the sense that it was attractive to women. He soon had the few young women of our neighborhood dangling after him, like captured fish on a blade of palmetto. I saw all this, and, seeing, had no suspicion that with the chance to choose from so many who were still unclaimed, he would seek to win my own dear one.
"I cannot dwell on this. Indeed, I never knew the details, only the finale. The blow came as unsuspected as might an earthquake in a land where tranquillity had reigned for centuries. I had been away all day, and for once my wife had not ridden with me. I had myself bidden her remain at home, because of the intense heat of an August sun. She had begged to go with me, perhaps fearing to be left alone. But I knew nothing, suspected nothing of the ache and terror in her heart. When I got back, it was already dark, and having been away from Juanita all day, I called for her at once. The empty echoes of my voice coming back as the only answer to my cry struck my heart with a chill, and a nameless, hideous dread seized me. Had anything happened? Was she ill, or dead? Dead it must be, I thought, or she would have answered. I wandered through the house; I searched the whole place; I sprang back upon my horse and rode from house to house throughout that whole awful night. I discovered nothing. No one could tell me aught. At daybreak I returned fagged out, with a vague hope that perhaps I had made some blunder and that she was still at home. At last, in the room where I kept my accounts and transacted business, I found a note upon my desk which explained the horrible truth. Here is a copy of it. Note the hideous braggadocio. It read:
"'I. O. U. One wife. (Signed) L—— R——.'
"That you may fully appreciate how this taunt stung, I must remind you that, as I have said, my father had taught me to follow most rigidly the rules of honor. In transactions involving even very great sums of money, it was not uncommon amongst us cattlemen to acknowledge an indebtedness in this primitive, informal way,—simply writing upon a slip of paper, perhaps torn from the edge of a newspaper, 'I. O. U.', giving the amount, and adding the signature. No dates were really necessary, though sometimes added, because the possession of the paper proved the debt, the cancellation by payment always leading to the destruction of the I. O. U.
"Thus this heartless young brute from the North had not only stolen from me my chief treasure, but he had left behind an acknowledgment of his debt in that form which was most binding among us.