"While the money lasted, yes."
"Money! Did they sell the ranch?"
"Mortgaged it, Craig did, until he couldn't get another cent."
"And then—"
"It's the old story."
"They went to pieces?"
"Craig left her—for another woman." The clawlike hands closed tighter and tighter. "He never really cared for Bess. He couldn't. It seems he was supporting the other woman all the time."
Hawkins sat chewing the stump of the cigar in silence. In a lean-to the cowboys were going to bed. Muffled by the intervening wall came the mocking sound of their intermittent laughter.
"And then what?" asked the rancher at last.
"Bess came back."