Her and Williams—­that wasn’t his name, like he acknowledged, hisse’f, you ricollect—­ner she didn’t want to tell his right name; and we forgive her far that.  Her and ‘Williams’ was own brother and sister, and the’r parents lived in Ohio some’ers.  The’r mother had be’n dead five year’ and better—­grieved to death over her onnachurl brother’s recklessness, which Annie hinted had broke her father up in some way, in tryin’ to shield him from the law.  And the secret of her bein’ with him was this:  She had married a man o’ the name of Curtis or Custer, I don’t mind which, adzackly—­but no matter; she’d married a well-to-do young feller ‘at her brother helt a’ old grudge agin, she never knowed what; and sence her marriage her brother had went on from bad to worse tel finally her father jist give him up and told him to go it his own way—­he’d killed his mother and ruined him, and he’d jist give up all hopes.  But Annie—­you know how a sister is—­she still clung to him and done ever’thing far him, tel finally, one night about three years after she was married she got word some way that he was in trouble agin, and sent her husband to he’p him; and a half hour after he’d gone, her brother come in, all excited and bloody, and told her to git the baby and come with him, ’at her husband had got in a quarrel with a friend o’ his and was bad hurt.  And she went with him, of course, and he tuck her in a buggy, and lit out with her as tight as he could go all night; and then told her ’at he was the feller ’at had quarreled with her husband, and the officers was after him and he was obleeged to leave the country, and far fear he hadn’t made shore work o’ him, he was a-takin’ her along to make shore of his gittin’ his revenge; and he swore he’d kill her and the baby too ef she dared to whimper.  And so it was, through a hunderd hardships he’d made his way at last to our section o’ the country, givin’ out ’at they was man and wife, and keepin’ her from denyin’ of it by threats, and promises of the time a-comin’ when he’d send her home to her man agin in case he hadn’t killed him.  And so it run on tel you’d a-cried to hear her tell it, and still see her sister’s love far the feller a-breakin’ out by a-declarin’ how kind he was to her at times, and how he wasn’t railly bad at heart, on’y far his ungov’nable temper.  But I couldn’t he’p but notice, when she was a tellin’ of her hist’ry, what a quiet sort o’ look o’ satisfaction settled on the face o’ Steve and the rest of ’em, don’t you understand.

And now ther’ was on’y one thing she wanted to ast, she said; and that was, could she still make her home with us tel she could git word to her friends?—­and there she broke down agin, not knowin’, of course, whether they was dead er alive; far time and time agin she said somepin’ told her she’d never see her husband agin on this airth; and then the women-folks would cry with her and console her, and the boys would speak hopeful—­all but Steve; some way o’ nuther Steve was never like hisse’f from that time on.