t intrude
upon your party, or bother Mrs. Montoyo. But if Daniel brings trouble to
me I will hand it back to him. That's flat. He shall not flout me out of
face. It rests with him whether we travel on peacefully or not. And I
thank you for your interest."

"I will pray for you," she said simply. "Good-bye, sir."

She withdrew, hastening again, sleek haired, round figured, modest in her
shabby gown. I proceeded to the outfit with a new sense of disease. If
she--if Mrs. Montoyo really had yielded, if she were out of the game--but
she never had been in it; not to me. And still I conned the matter over
and over, vainly convincing myself that the situation had cleared.
Notwithstanding all my effort, I somehow felt that an incentive had
vanished, leaving a gap. The affair now had simmered down to plain temper
and tit for tat. I championed nothing, except myself.

Why, with her submissive, in a fracas I might be working hurt to her,
beyond the harm to him. But she be hanged, as to that phase of it. I had
been led on so far that there was no solution save as Daniel turned aside.
Heaven knows that the matter would have been sordid enough had it focused
upon a gambler's wife; and here it looked only prosaic. Thus viewing it I
fought an odd disappointment in myself, coupled with a keener
disappointment in her.

"You talked to Hyrum, I see," Jenks commented.

"I did."

"'Bout Dan'l, mebbe?"

"I wanted to make plain that the business is none of my seeking. Hyrum is
wagon master."

"Didn't get any satisfaction, I'll bet."

"No. On the contrary."

"I could have told you you'd be wastin' powder."

"At any rate," I informed, "Mrs. Montoyo is entirely out of the matter.
She never was in it except as she was entitled to protection, but now she
requires no further notice."

"How so?"

"That is her wish. She sent me word by Rachael."

"She did? Wall?" He eyed me. "You swaller that?"

"Willingly." And I swallowed my bitterness also.

"Means to marry him, does she?"

"Rachael did not say as to that. Rather, she gave me to understand that a
way would be found to release Mrs. Montoyo from Benton connections, but
that no woman in Utah is obliged to marry. Is that true?"

"Um-m." Jenks rubbed his beard. "Wall, they do say Brigham Young is ag'in
promisc'yus swappin', and things got to be done straight, 'cordin' to the
faith. But an unjined female in the church is a powerful lonely critter.
Sticks out like a sore thumb. They