To this end he told her lively anecdotes, chaste classics of the range calculated to amuse, until they reached the very door of home:—­About the British sailor who, having drifted up the Sacramento valley, was lured to mount a cow-pony known to be hysterical; of how he had declared when they picked him up a moment later, “If I’d been aware of the gale I’d have lashed myself to the rigging.”  Then about the other trusting tenderfoot who was directed to insist at the stable in Santa Fe that they give him a “bucking broncho;” who was promptly accommodated and speedily unseated with much flourish, to the wicked glee of those who had deceived him; and who, when he asked what the horse had done and was told that he had “bucked,” had thereupon declared gratefully, “Did he only buck?  It’s a God’s mercy he didn’t broncho too, or he’d have killed me!”

From this he drifted into the anecdote of old Chief Chew-feather, who became drunk one day and made a nuisance of himself in the streets of Atchison; how he had been driven out of town by Marshal Ed Lanigan, who, mounting his pony, chased him a mile or so, meantime emptying both his six-shooters at the fleeing brave by way of making the exact situation clear even to a clouded mind; and how the alarmed and sobered chief had ridden his own pony to a shadow, never drawing rein until he reached the encampment of his tribe at dusk, to report that “the whites had broken out at Atchison.”

He noticed, however, that she was affected to even greater constraint of manner by these sallies, though he laughed heartily himself at each climax as he made it, determined to show her that he had meant absolutely nothing the moment before.  He succeeded so little, that he resolved never again to be reckless, if she would only be her old self on the morrow.  He would not even tell her, as he had meant to, that looking into her eyes was like looking off under the spruces, where it was dark and yet light.

The little bent man at the house would look at them with a sort of helplessness when they came in, sometimes even forgetting the smile he was wont to wear to hide his hurts.  He was impressed anew each time he saw them with the punishing power of such vengeance as was left to the Lord.  He could see more than either of the pair before him.  The little white-haired boy who had fought him with tooth and nail so long ago, to be not taken from Prudence, had now come back with the might of a man, even the might of a lover, to take her from him when she had become all of his life.  He could think of no sharper revenge upon himself or his people.  For this cowboy was the spirit incarnate of the oncoming East, thorned on by the Lord to avenge his Church’s crime.

Day after day he would lie consuming the little substance left within him in an effort to save himself; to keep by him the child who had become his miser’s gold; to keep her respect above all, to have her think him a good man.  Yet never a way would open.  Here was the boy with the man’s might, and they were already lovers, for he knew too well the meaning of all those signs which they themselves but half understood.  And he became more miserable day by day, for he saw clearly it was only his selfishness that made him suffer.  He had met so many tests, and now he must fail at the last great sacrifice.