“And she spoke pleasant to me—­pleasant and gay-like.  But a woman can tell sorrow in a woman’s eyes.  And she asked me would I rest in her room there, and what was my name.  ’They tell me you claim to know it better than I do,’ I says.  ‘They tell me you say it is Mrs. McLean.’  She put her hand on her breast, and she keeps lookin’ at me without never speaking.  ‘Maybe I am not so welcome now,’ I says.  ‘One minute,’ says she.  ’Let me get used to it.’  And she sat down.

“Lin, she is a square-lookin’ girl.  I’ll say that for her.

“I never thought to sit down onced myself; I don’t know why, but I kep’ a-standing, and I took in that room of hers.  She had flowers and things around there, and I seen your picture standing on the table, and I seen your six-shooter right by it—­and, oh, Lin, hadn’t I knowed your face before ever she did, and that gun you used to let me shoot on Bear Creek?  It took me that sudden!  Why, it rushed over me so I spoke right out different from what I’d meant and what I had ready fixed up to say.

“‘Why did you do it?’ I says to her, while she was a-sitting.  ’How could you act so, and you a woman?’ She just sat, and her sad eyes made me madder at the idea of her.  ‘You have had real sorrow,’ says I, ’if they report correct.  You have knowed your share of death, and misery, and hard work, and all.  Great God! ain’t there things enough that come to yus uncalled for and natural, but you must run around huntin’ up more that was leavin’ yus alone and givin’ yus a chance?  I knowed him onced.  I knowed your Lin McLean.  And when that was over, I knowed for the first time how men can be different.’  I’m started, Lin, I’m started.  Leave me go on, and when I’m through I’ll quit.  ’Some of ’em, anyway,’ I says to her, ‘has hearts and self-respect, and ain’t hogs clean through.’

“’I know,” she says, thoughtful-like.

“And at her whispering that way I gets madder.

“‘You know!’ I says then.  ’What is it that you know?  Do you know that you have hurt a good man’s heart?  For onced I hurt it myself, though different.  And hurts in them kind of hearts stays.  Some hearts is that luscious and pasty you can stab ’em and it closes up so yu’d never suspicion the place—­but Lin McLean!  Nor yet don’t yus believe his is the kind that breaks—­if any kind does that.  You may sit till the gray hairs, and you may wall up your womanhood, but if a man has got manhood like him, he will never sit till the gray hairs.  Grief over losin’ the best will not stop him from searchin’ for a second best after a while.  He wants a home, and he has got a right to one,’ says I to Miss Jessamine.  ‘You have not walled up Lin McLean,’ I says to her.  Wait, Lin, wait.  Yus needn’t to tell me that’s a lie.  I know a man thinks he’s walled up for a while.”

“She could have told you it was a lie,” said the cow-puncher.

“She did not.  ‘Let him get a home,’ says she.  ‘I want him to be happy.’  ‘That flash in your eyes talks different,’ says I.  ’Sure enough yus wants him to be happy.  Sure enough.  But not happy along with Miss Second Best.’