kin without galivantin’ about atter my kin by a’ unfortunate marriage, but nothin’ would do ’er but fer me to go, so I did, an’ found the old woman had run clean off.  Well, when I told Clariss’ that, she mighty nigh had a fit.  She swore she had driv her sister desperate by her conduct in the past an’ that ’er body would be found as stiff as a bar o’ iron in the woods some’rs whar she wus tryin’ to keep warm.  So the long an’ short of it wus that me ‘n’ my hoss had to start out.”

“And you have found her?” asked the young man, now thoroughly concerned.

“You bet I did, after scourin’ the entire face of creation.  I traced ’er frum one old acquaintance to another, till last night I run up on ’er over at Bill Wyman’s, ten miles down the valley.  It was ten o’clock when I got thar, an’ as cold as a cake o’ ice in the small o’ yore back.  I called Bill out in his shift on the porch.  I was mighty nigh friz, an’ I reckon he soon got that away, fer he kept dancin’ about fust on one foot an’ then on another, while we talked.  He admitted she wus thar, but he wouldn’t let me stay all night, although I offered to plank down the usual price fer man an’ beast.  She’d been talkin’ to him, I could see that, fer he up an’ said some’n about folks bein’ churched in his settlement fer the mistreatment o’ widows, but he’d admit, he said, that he wusn’t posted on the manners an’ customs uv all the places over beyant the mount’in; he reckoned the nigher people got to the railroad the furder they wus from the cross.  I tried to reason with ’im, but he said ef I wanted to argue my case, I’d better come round in the summer.

“Thar wusn’t any other house nigher’n six miles, an’ so I made me a fire in a little cove by the road, an’ set over it an’ thought, mostly about women, all night.  I’ve heerd preachers say a man oughtn’t to think too much about women anyway, but I reckon I backslid last night, fer I thought hard about mighty nigh ever’ woman I ever seed or heerd of.”

“How has Mrs. Dawson been getting on since I left?” ventured Westerfelt.

“Just about as bad as she knowed how, I reckon, John.  After you left, she seemed to take ’er spite out on Lizzie Lithicum.  Liz never could pass anywhar nigh ‘er without havin’ the old cat laugh out loud at ’er.  Liz has been goin’ with that cock-eyed Joe Webb a good deal—­you know he’s jest about the porest ketch anywhars about, an’ that seemed to tickle Mis’ Dawson mightily.  I reckon somebody told ’er some’n Liz said away back when you fust started to fly around ’er.  I axed Clem Dill ef he knowed anything about it, an’ Clem ‘lowed Liz had kind o’ made fun o’ Sally about you gittin’ tired uv ‘er, an’ one thing ur other.  I dunno; I cayn’t keep up with sech things.  I jest try to find ‘em out once in awhile because Clariss’ is sech a hand to want to know.  When she gits to rantin’ about anythin’ I’ve done—­ur hain’t done—­all I got to do to shet ’er up is to start to tell