“You say you know some’n about Minnie?” The gaunt hand which till now had hovered over the butt of the big revolver hung down straight. He stood staring, his lip hanging loose, a sudden droop of indecision upon him.
“I know this much, Jeff,” Pole said, less sharply. “I know you are not after the fust offender agin yore family honor, an’ when I prove that to you I don’t believe you’ll look at it the same.”
“You say—you say——?”
“Listen now, Jeff, an’ don’t fly off the handle at a well-wisher sayin’ what he thinks has to be said in justice to all concerned. The truth is, you never seed Minnie like other folks has all along. You seed ’er grow up an’ she was yore pet. To you she was a regular angel; but other folks has knowed all along, Jeff, that she was born with a sorter light nature. Women folks, with the’r keen eyes, has knowed that ever since she got out o’ short dresses. Even yore own wife has said behind yore back a heap on this line that she was afeared to say to you. Not a soul has dared to talk plain to you, an’ even I wouldn’t do it except in this case o’ life an’ death.”
Wade shook back his long, coarse hair. He was panting like a tired dog. “I don’t believe a damn word of what you are a-sayin’!” he muttered, “an’ I’ll make you prove it, by God, or I’ll have yore life-blood!”
“Listen to me, Jeff,” Pole said gently. “I’m not goin’ to threaten any more. Believe me or not, but listen! You remember when Thad Pelham went off to Mexico a year or so ago?”
Wade made no reply, but there was a look of dawning comprehension in his great, blearing eyes.
“I see you remember that,” Pole went on. “Well, you know, too, that he was goin’ with Minnie a lot about that time—takin’ her buggy-ridin’ an’ to meetin’. He was a devil in pants; his whole family was bad. The men in it wouldn’t go in the gate o’ heaven ef a woman was winkin’ at ’em on the outside. Well, Thad started fer Mexico one day, an’ at the same time Minnie went on a visit to yore brother Joe in Calhoun.
“She went thar a year ago,” Wade said, “fer I bought ’er ticket at Parley.”