“I didn’t tell him nothin’,” said Marie.  “I ain’t no snitch.”

“Ah-h, you are soft on him,” Bull sneered in disgust.

“What if I am?” she flared.  “What business is it of yores?”

“What’ll Nebraska say?” he proffered.

“Nebraska hell!” she sneered.  “Nebraska and me are through!”

“I know you’ve split, but that ain’t saying Nebraska will let you go with another gent.”

“I’ll go with anybody I please, and neither Nebraska nor you nore any other damn man is gonna stop me.  If you think different, try it, just try it!  Thassall I ask. This for you and Nebraska!” With which she snapped her fingers under his nose once, twice, and again.

“I wish Pap was still alive.  He could always handle you.  Remember the time you sassed him there in ...”  Here Marie accidentally dropped her brush into an empty pail, and the clatter drowned out the name of the town so far as Racey was concerned.  But Marie caught the name, for she straightened with a start and stared at Bull.  “Yeah,” continued Bull, “you remember it, huh?  I guess you do.  That was where Pap slapped yore chops and throwed you down the stairs.  Like to broke yore neck that time.  I wish you had.”

“‘Pap,’” she repeated. “‘Pap,’ and that town.  What made you think of them two names together?”

“Because that was the town where he throwed you down the stairs,” Bull told her matter-of-factly.

“It was the town where we met up with Bill Smith.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing—­only Bill Smith is here in town.”

“In Farewell?”

“In Farewell.”

“Why ain’t I seen him if he’s in Farewell?”

“Because he’s shaved off all of that beard and part of his eyebrows—­they used to meet plumb in the middle, remember—­till a body would hardly know him.  I didn’t.  I knowed they was somethin’ familiar about him, but I couldn’t tell what till you mentioned Pap and the town together.  Then I knowed.  Yeah, Bull, this gent’s the same Bill Smith Pap picked up on the trail.  He’s a respectable member of society now, I guess.  Calls himself Jack Harpe and spends most of his time runnin’ round Lanpher.”

“Then he ain’t too respectable, the lousy pup.  Calls himself Jack Harpe, huh?  Shore, he come in the Starlight with Lanpher and gimme the eye without a quiver.  Didn’t know me, he didn’t!  And I ain’t done nothin’ to my looks to change ’em.”

“Huh, y’ oughta seen the way he looked me up and down when he passed us on the Marysville trail.  You’d ‘a’ thought he just seen me.  Oh, he’s got his nerve.”

“Who is us?” Suspiciously.

“What it won’t do you no good to know.  I guess I can go riding with a friend if I like.  You seem to keep forgettin’ you ain’t got any ropes on me—­nary a rope.  Stop botherin’ yore fool head about me and my doings, and think of something worth while—­for instance, Jack Harpe.”