“Well, I ain’t going to starve here in the road, I guess,” spoke the image, with the suddenness of a miracle.  I think we all jumped, and I know that Lin did.  The image continued:  “Some folks and their money are soon parted”—­she meant me; her searching tones came straight at me; I was sure from the first that she knew all about me and my unfavorable opinion of her—­“but it ain’t going to be you this time, Lin McLean.  Ged ap!” This last was to the horse, I maintain, though the Governor says the husband immediately started off on a run.

At any rate, they were gone to their hotel, and Ogden was seated on some railroad ties, exclaiming:  “Oh, I like Wyoming!  I am certainly glad I came.”

“That’s who she is!” said the Governor, remembering Mrs. McLean all at once.  “I know her.  She used to be at Sidney.  She’s got another husband somewhere.  She’s one of the boys.  Oh, that’s nothing in this country!” he continued to the amazed Ogden, who had ejaculated “Bigamy!” “Lots of them marry, live together awhile, get tired and quit, travel, catch on to a new man, marry him, get tired and quit, travel, catch on—­”

“One moment, I beg,” said Ogden, adjusting his glasses.  “What does the law—­”

“Law?” said the Governor.  “Look at that place!” He swept his hand towards the vast plains and the mountains.  “Ninety-five thousand square miles of that, and sixty thousand people in it.  We haven’t got policemen yet on top of the Rocky Mountains.”

“I see,” said the New-Yorker.  “But—­but—­well let A and B represent first and second husbands, and X represent the woman.  Now, does A know about B? or does B know about A?  And what do they do about it?”

“Can’t say,” the Governor answered, jovially.  “Can’t generalize.  Depends on heaps of things—­ love—­money—­ Did you go to college?  Well, let A minus X equal B plus X, then if A and B get squared—­”

“Oh, come to lunch,” I said.  “Barker, do you really know the first husband is alive?”

“Wasn’t dead last winter.”  And Barker gave us the particulars.  Miss Katie Peck had not served long in the restaurant before she was wooed and won by a man who had been a ranch cook, a sheep-herder, a bar-tender, a freight hand, and was then hauling poles for the government.  During his necessary absences from home she, too, went out-of-doors.  This he often discovered, and would beat her, and she would then also beat him.  After the beatings one of them would always leave the other forever.  Thus was Sidney kept in small-talk until Mrs. Lusk one day really did not come back.  “Lusk,” said the Governor, finishing his story, “cried around the saloons for a couple of days, and then went on hauling poles for the government, till at last he said he’d heard of a better job south, and next we knew of him he was round Leavenworth.  Lusk was a pretty poor bird.  Owes me ten dollars.”

“Well,” I said, “none of us ever knew about him when she came to stay with Mrs. Taylor on Bear Creek.  She was Miss Peck when Lin made her Mrs. McLean.”