She shook her head.
“’Course he didn’t do nothin’ for you,” she added.
Mary continued the stare out of the window.
“Funny sort of a feller, was Skeeter Bill,” mused Mrs. Porter. “I ’member that he killed Jeff Billings ’cause Jeff lied to him. And Jeff had some laundry with me which wasn’t paid for, and Skeeter paid for it. I offered it to him, but he wouldn’t take it.
“’Member how he saved you and the preacher at the Poplar Springs, after Tug Leeds and his gang had shot up the outfit to steal the horses? He brought yuh both back here, and backed the preacher t’ clean up Sunbeam.
“And Tug Leeds lied to you and the preacher about Skeeter, and made yuh think he was a awful bum. ’Member that, do you?
“And then mebbe yuh ’member how Tug Leeds framed it to have the preacher hold church in his danged honkatonk t’ disgust both of yuh, and how Skeeter Bill raised —— with the whole gang and saved yuh from bein’ stole by Leeds and his gang?
“’Member that some of that lousy outfit shot old Judge Tareyton, through the winder, and the old judge, with his dyin’ muscles, pulled the trigger that sent Tug Leeds t’ ——?
“And Judge Tareyton was your own pa, and Tug Leeds was the man who had sent him to the penitentiary and stole his name. ’Member all that, don’t yuh? Skeeter Bill was the man who engineered all that.”
Mary turned slowly and nodded dumbly.