It was pointed out to her that Homer wouldn’t be likely to come and collect all his things in the night in order to keep a date with an assassin, or even to have his leg broke.  About the third day she guessed pretty close to the awful truth and spoke a few calm words about putting her case in the hands of some good lawyer.

The valley was interested.  It looked like a chance for the laugh of the year.  It looked like the lightnings of a just heaven had struck where they was long overdue.  Then it was discovered that Homer was hiding out over in the hills with a man after coyotes with traps and poison.  His job must of appealed to Homer’s cynical nature at that moment—­anything with traps and poison in it.

Dave Pickens was the man that found him, he not having much else to do.  And he let Homer know the worst he could think of without mincing words.  He said the deserted fiancee was going to bring suit against Homer for one hundred thousand dollars—­that being the biggest sum Dave could think of—­for breach of promise, and Homer might as well come out and face the music.

Homer did come out, bold as brass.  He’d been afraid the lady might gun him or act violent with something; but if she wasn’t threatening anything but legal violence he didn’t care.  He just couldn’t conceive that a lady with three children could make a suit like that stick against any man—­especially three children that was known to be hellions.  He didn’t even believe the lady would start a suit—­not with the facts of her shame known far and wide.  He was jaunty and defiant about this, and come right out of hiding and agreed to work for me again, Scott Humphrey having sent his wife and children on a visit to Grandma Humphrey.

But, lands.  He didn’t earn his salt.  Friends and well-wishers took the jauntiness all out of him in no time.  Parties rode from far and near to put him wise.  Ranchers from ten miles up and down the creek would drop important work just to ride over and tell him harsh facts about the law, and how, as man to man, it looked dark indeed for him.  These parties told him that the possession of three children by a lawful widow was not regarded as criminal by our best courts.  It wasn’t even considered shameful.  And it was further pointed out by many of the same comforters that the children would really be a help to the lady in her suit, cinching the sympathy of a jury.

Also, they didn’t neglect to tell him that probably half the jury would be women—­wives and mothers.  And what chance would he have with women when they was told how he regarded children?  He spent a good half of the time I paid him for in listening to these friendly words.  They give Homer an entirely new slant on our boasted civilization and lowered it a whole lot in his esteem.

About the only person in the whole valley that wasn’t laughing at him and giving him false sympathy with a sting in its tail was Minna Humphrey.  Homer told her all about the foul conspiracy against his fortune, and how his life would be blasted by marrying into a family with three outcasts like he’d been told these was.  And what was our courts coming to if their records could be stained by blackmailers.