Bill silenced him without ceremony.

"Don't yap," he cried. "How ken I read this yer muck with you throwin'
hot air?"

Scipio desisted, and sat staring vacantly at the long ears of Minky's
mule. He was gazing on a mental picture of Jessie as he considered she
must have looked when writing that letter. He saw her distress in her
beautiful eyes. There were probably tears in her eyes, too, and the
thought hurt him and made him shrink from it. He felt that her poor
heart must have been breaking when she had written. Perhaps James had
been cruel to her. Yes, he was sure to have been cruel to her. Such a
blackguard as he was sure to be cruel to women-folk. No doubt she was
longing to escape from him. She was sure to be. She would never have
willingly gone away--

"Tosh!" cried Bill. And Scipio found the letter thrust out for him to
take back.

"Eh?"

"I said 'tosh!'" replied the gambler. "How'd you get that letter?"

"It was flung in through the window. It was tied to a stone."

"Yes?"

"There was a wrappin' to it." Then Scipio's eyes began to sparkle at
the recollection. "It was wrote on by the feller James," he went on in
a low voice.

Then suddenly he turned, and his whole manner partook of an impotent
heat.

"He'd wrote I was to hand her, Vada, over to him ten miles out on this
trail--or there'd be trouble."

Wild Bill stirred and shifted his seat with a fierce dash of
irritation. His face was stern and his black eyes blazing. He spat out
his chew of tobacco.

"An' you was scared to death, like some silly skippin' sheep. You
hadn't bowel enough to tell him to go to hell. You felt like handin'
him any other old thing you'd got--'Here, go on, help yourself.'" He
flung out his arms to illustrate his meaning. "'You got my wife;
here's my kiddies. If you need anything else, you can sure get my
claim. Guess my shack'll make you an elegant summer palace.' Gee!"

The gambler's scorn was withering, and with each burst of it he
flourished his arms as though handing out possessions to an imaginary
James. And every word he spoke smote Scipio, goading him and lashing
up the hatred which burnt deep down in his heart for the man who had
ruined his life.

But the little man's thought of Jessie was not so easily set aside,
and he jumped to defend himself.

"You don't understand--" he began. But the other cut him short with a
storm of scathing anger.

"No, I sure don't understand," he cried, "I don't. I sure don't. G