Curly, already sufficiently perturbed, witnessed all this written on her face, stumbled, stammered, but was unable to find coherent speech; although he saw plainly enough the subterfuge with which even now the girl sought to hedge herself against prying eyes that would have read her secret.  She began again, to ask him of his family, the same questions.  “Is anything wrong?” she demanded.  In some way they were seated before he could go on.

“It ain’t the twins, ma’am,” he began.  “I got—­I got a letter for you.  It’s from him—­from us—­that is, I got a letter from Mr. Anderson—­Dan Anderson, you know.”

He fumbled in his pocket.  The girl, thoroughbred, looked him straight in the face, pale, meeting what she felt to be the great moment of her life.

“Then he’s alive!  He must be!”

Curly shook his head; meaning that he was feeling in the wrong pocket.

“He is dead!  And I did not see him.  He—­went away—­” Her chin quivered.  “Tell me,” she whispered, “tell me!”

Curly, busy in his search for the letter, lost the tragedy of this.

“Tell me, tell me, how did it happen?”

“Well, ma’am, he ain’t hurt so awful,” remarked Curly, calmly.  “He just got a finger or so touched up a little, so’s he couldn’t write none to speak of, you see.”

Her heart gave a great bound.  She feared to hope, lest the truth might be too cruel; but at length she dared the issue.  “Curly,” said she, firmly, “you are not telling me the truth.”

“I know it, ma’am,” replied Curly, amiably; he suddenly realized that he was not making his own case quite strong enough.  “The fact is, he got hurt a leetle bit worse’n that.  His hand, his left—­no, I mean his right hand got busted up plenty.  Why, he couldn’t cut his own victuals.  The fact is, it’s maybe even a little worse’n that.”

“Tell me the truth!” the girl demanded steadily.  “Is his arm gone?”

“Sure it is,” replied Curly, cheerfully, glad of assistance.  “Do you reckon Dan Anderson would be gettin’ anybody to write to you for him if he had even a piece of a arm left in the shop?  I reckon not!  He ain’t that sort of a man.”

Curly’s sudden improvement gave him courage.  “The fact is, ma’am,” said he, “I got to break this thing to you kind of gentle.  You know how that is yourself.”

“I know all about it now,” she said calmly.  “I knew he would not come back—­I saw it in his face.  It was all because of that miserable railroad trouble that he went away—­that he didn’t ever come.  It was all my own fault—­my fault,—­but I didn’t mean it—­I didn’t—­”

Curly, for the first time in his life, found himself engaged in an important emotional situation.  He rose and gazed down at her with solemn pity written upon his countenance.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I don’t like to see you take on.  I wish’t you wouldn’t.  Why, I’ve seen men shot like Dan Anderson is, bullets clean through the middle of their body, and them out and frisky in less’n six weeks.”