stand against a window, or make sounds. Rather I stood right still, and
after a while Polly surprised herself into dead silence. I couldn't hear
that man, or feel, or see him. I could smell him, but that don't supply
his bearings. I could taste the air from him, but that flickered. I
sensed him. Can't explain that--no. You just feel if a man stares hard.
I fired at that. Then Polly, of course, went off into all sorts of fits.

Next morning I tracked blood sign to the hospital. Seems a young person
from the bank had took to conjuring and swallowed lead.

It was still before breakfast that I told Polly to pack her dunnage,
'cause we was moving out from Abilene. I claimed I could earn enough to
keep my wife without her needing to go out into society.

"On cow-boy pay?" she said laughing. "On forty dollars a month? I spend
more'n that on champagne. Here you _Miss_ Jesse, who's payin' for
this--you? Who keeps you, eh, Miss Prunes--and--prisms? Shamed of my
bein' a lady, eh? I am a lady, too, and don't you forget it. And now,
git out of my home."

I struck a match to the bo-kay of paper flowers, heaped on the
hand-painted pictures, the paper fans, the rocker chairs, and slung the
coal-oil lamp into the flames; then while she tore my shoulder with her
teeth, I carried her to my tent "That's your home now," I said, "the
home of an honest working-man," I said, "and if another tough defiles my
home, I'll kill you."

The house-warming gathered the neighbors, but she had no use for
neighbors. Only they seen the line I drew in the dust around that tent,
the dead line. Afterward if any man came near that line, she'd scream.

But she'd taught me to drink, an' I drank, day after day, night after
night, while she sat frightened in the tent, moaning when I came. Only
when she was cured could I get work, not while I had to watch all day,
all night. Only when she was cured could I get work, make good, an'
keep my wife as women should be kept. And I--and I--why if I let myself
get sober once I'd remember, and remember, and go mad.

She swore she loved me, she vowed that she'd repented, and I believed
until she claimed religion. I'd seen her breed of religion. I'd rather
have her atheist than shamming. She would keep straight, and be my
faithful wife if I'd quit drinking, if I'd only take her away. But she'd
married me for a joke, and false as a cracked bell she'd chime out lies
and lies, knowing as I knew that if she'd ever been the