“I cannot tell you about it, Jim,” he said; “at least I cannot tell you now; but a great burden has been lifted from my life.  I have never spoken of this to you, or to anybody; but the first cruel wound that the world ever gave me has been healed by a touch.”

“It takes a woman to do them things,” said Jim.  “I knowed when ye gin up the little woman, as was free from what happened about an hour arter, that ye was firm’ low an’ savin’ yer waddin’.  Oh, ye can’t fool me, not much!”

“What do you think of that, Jim?” said Benedict, smiling, and handing him a check for five hundred dollars that the letter had inclosed.

Jim looked it over and read it through with undisguised astonishment.

“Did she gin it to ye?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“An’ be ye a goin’ to keep it?”

“Yes, I’m going to keep it.”

Jim was evidently doubtful touching the delicacy both of tendering and receiving such a gift.

“If that thing had come to me from the little woman,” said he, “I should think she was gittin’ oneasy, an’ a little dubersome about my comin’ to time.  It don’t seem jest the thing for a woman to shell out money to a man.  My nater goes agin it.  I feel it all over me, an’ I vow, I b’lieve that if the little woman had did that thing to me, I sh’d rub out my reckonin’ an’ start new.”

“It’s all right, though, Jim,” responded Benedict, good-naturedly—­“right for the woman to give it, and right for me to receive it.  Don’t trouble yourself at all about it.”

Benedict’s assurance did little to relieve Jim’s bewilderment, who still thought it a very improper thing to receive money from a woman.  He did not examine himself far enough to learn that Benedict’s independence of his own care and provision was partly the cause of his pain.  Five hundred dollars in the woods was a great deal of money.  To Jim’s apprehension, the man had become a capitalist.  Some one beside himself—­some one richer and more powerful than himself—­had taken the position of benefactor toward his friend.  He was glad to see Benedict happy, but sorry that he could not have been the agent in making him so.

“Well, I can’t keep ye forever’n’ ever, but I was a hopin’ ye’d hang by till I git hold of the little woman,” said Jim.

“Do you suppose I would leave you now, Jim?”

“Well, I knowed a yoke o’ cattle couldn’t start ye, with a hoss ahead on ’em; but a woman, Mr. Benedict “—­and Jim’s voice sunk to a solemn and impressive key—­“a woman with the right kind of an eye, an’ a takin’ way, is stronger nor a steam Injun.  She can snake ye ’round anywhere; an’ the queerest thing about it is that a feller’s willin’ to go, an’ thinks it’s purty.  She tells ye to come, an’ ye come smilin’; and then she tells ye to go, an’ ye go smilin’; and then she winds ye ’round her finger, and ye feel as limber an’ as willin’ as if ye was a whip-lash, an’ hadn’t nothin’ else to do.”