“This plain statement of facts fell like a bombshell on mamma.  She started a private investigation of her own, and her verdict was in that letter.  It was a centre shot.  That evening when I locked the schoolhouse door it was for the last time, for I never unlocked it again.  My landlady, dear old womanly soul, tried hard to have me teach the school out at least, but I didn’t see it that way.  The cause of education in Kentucky might have gone straight to eternal hell, before I’d have stayed another day in that neighborhood.  I had money enough to get to Texas with, and here I am.  When a fellow gets it burnt into him like a brand that way once, it lasts him quite a while.  He ’ll feel his way next time.”

“That was rather a raw deal to give a fellow,” said Officer, who had been listening while playing cards.  “Didn’t you never see the girl again?”

“No, nor you wouldn’t want to either if that letter had been written to you.  And some folks claim that seven is a lucky number; there were seven boys in our family and nary one ever married.”

“That experience of Fox’s,” remarked Honeyman, after a short silence, “is almost similar to one I had.  Before Lovell and Flood adopted me, I worked for a horse man down on the Nueces.  Every year he drove up the trail a large herd of horse stock.  We drove to the same point on the trail each year, and I happened to get acquainted up there with a family that had several girls in it.  The youngest girl in the family and I seemed to understand each other fairly well.  I had to stay at the horse camp most of the time, and in one way and another did not get to see her as much as I would have liked.  When we sold out the herd, I hung around for a week or so, and spent a month’s wages showing her the cloud with the silver lining.  She stood it all easy, too.  When the outfit went home, of course I went with them.  I was banking plenty strong, however, that next year, if there was a good market in horses, I’d take her home with me.  I had saved my wages and rustled around, and when we started up the trail next year, I had forty horses of my own in the herd.  I had figured they would bring me a thousand dollars, and there was my wages besides.

“When we reached this place, we held the herd out twenty miles, so it was some time before I got into town to see the girl.  But the first time I did get to see her I learned that an older sister of hers, who had run away with some renegade from Texas a year or so before, had drifted back home lately with tears in her eyes and a big fat baby boy in her arms.  She warned me to keep away from the house, for men from Texas were at a slight discount right then in that family.  The girl seemed to regret it and talked reasonable, and I thought I could see encouragement.  I didn’t crowd matters, nor did her folks forget me when they heard that Byler had come in with a horse herd from the Nueces.  I met the girl away from home several times during