“For the telegraph-mender?  Yes, sir.  It came Tuesday.  You’re to find the pole-wagon at Drybone.”

This news was good, and all that he wished to know.  He could drive out and escape a night at the Hotel Brunswick.  But he lingered, because Jessamine spoke so pleasantly to him.  He had heard of her also.

“Governor Barker has not been around here?” he said.

“Not yet, sir.  We understand he is expected through on a hunting-trip.”

“I suppose there is room for two and a trunk on that wagon?”

“I reckon so, sir.”  Jessamine glanced at the man, and he took himself out.  Most men took themselves out if Jessamine so willed; and it was mostly achieved thus, in amity.

On the platform the man found his wife again.

“Then I needn’t to walk to Tommy’s,” she said.  “And we’ll eat as we travel.  But you’ll wait till I’m through with her.”  She made a gesture toward the station.

“Why—­why—­what do you want with her.  Don’t you know who she is?”

“It was me told you who she was, James Lusk.  You’ll wait till I’ve been and asked her after Lin McLean’s health, and till I’ve saw how the likes of her talks to the likes of me.”

He made a feeble protest that this would do no one any good.

“Sew yourself up, James Lusk.  If it has been your idea I come with yus clear from Laramie to watch yus plant telegraph-poles in the sage-brush, why you’re off.  I ain’t heard much ’o Lin since the day he learned it was you and not him that was my husband.  And I’ve come back in this country to have a look at my old friends—­and” (she laughed loudly and nodded at the station) “my old friends’ new friends!”

Thus ordered, the husband wandered away to find his wagon and the horse.

Jessamine, in the office, had finished her station duties and returned to her needle.  She sat contemplating the scorched sock of Billy’s, and heard a heavy step at the threshold.  She turned, and there was the large woman with the feather quietly surveying her.  The words which the stranger spoke then were usual enough for a beginning.  But there was something of threat in the strong animal countenance, something of laughter ready to break out.  Much beauty of its kind had evidently been in the face, and now, as substitute for what was gone, was the brag look of assertion that it was still all there.  Many stranded travellers knocked at Jessamine’s door, and now, as always, she offered the hospitalities of her neat abode, the only room in Separ fit for a woman.  As she spoke, and the guest surveyed and listened, the door blew shut with a crash.

Outside, in a shed, Billy had placed the wagon between himself and his father.

“How you have grown!” the man was saying; and he smiled.  “Come, shake hands.  I did not think to see you here.”

“Dare you to touch me!” Billy screamed.  “No, I’ll never come with you.  Lin says I needn’t to.”