“To-day, when Wade came with your letter, he asked me, sort of queer, ‘Say, Wils, do you know how many letters I’ve fetched you from Collie?’ I said, ‘Lord, no, I don’t, but they’re a lot.’  Then he said there were just forty-seven letters.  Forty-seven!  I couldn’t believe it, and told him he was crazy.  I never had such good fortune.  Well, he made me count them, and, dog-gone it, he was right.  Forty-seven wonderful love-letters from the sweetest girl on earth!  But think of Wade remembering every one!  It beats me.  He’s beyond understanding.

“So Jack Belllounds still stays away from White Slides.  Collie, I’m sure sorry for his father.  What it would be to have a son like Buster Jack!  My God!  But for your sake I go around yelling and singing like a locoed Indian.  Pretty soon spring will come.  Then, you wild-flower of the hills, you girl with the sweet mouth and the sad eyes—­then I’m coming after you!  And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never take you away from me again!

     “Your faithful
          “WILSON.”

     “March 19th.

“DEAREST WILSON,—­Your last letters have been read and reread, and kept under my pillow, and have been both my help and my weakness during these trying days since Jack’s return.

“It has not been that I was afraid to write—­though, Heaven knows, if this letter should fall into the hands of dad it would mean trouble for me, and if Jack read it—­I am afraid to think of that!  I just have not had the heart to write you.  But all the time I knew I must write and that I would.  Only, now, what to say tortures me.  I am certain that confiding in you relieves me.  That’s why I’ve told you so much.  But of late I find it harder to tell what I know about Jack Belllounds.  I’m in a queer state of mind, Wilson dear.  And you’ll wonder, and you’ll be sorry to know I haven’t seen much of Ben lately—­that is, not to talk to.  It seems I can’t bear his faith in me, his hope, his love—­when lately matters have driven me into torturing doubt.

“But lest you might misunderstand, I’m going to try to tell you something of what is on my mind, and I want you to read it to Ben.  He has been hurt by my strange reluctance to be with him.

“Jack came home on the night of March second.  You’ll remember that day, so gloomy and dark and dreary.  It snowed and sleeted and rained.  I remember how the rain roared on the roof.  It roared so loud we didn’t hear the horse.  But we heard heavy boots on the porch outside the living-room, and the swish of a slicker thrown to the floor.  There was a bright fire.  Dad looked up with a wild joy.  All of a sudden he changed.  He blazed.  He recognized the heavy tread of his son.  If I ever pitied and loved him it was then.  I thought of the return of the Prodigal Son!...  There came a knock on the door.  Then dad recovered.  He threw it open wide.  The streaming light fell upon Jack Belllounds, indeed, but not as I knew him.  He entered.  It was the first time I ever saw Jack look in the least like a man.  He was pale, haggard, much older, sullen, and bold.  He strode in with a ‘Howdy, folks,’ and threw his wet hat on the floor, and walked to the fire.  His boots were soaked with water and mud.  His clothes began to steam.