says Homer; "it would be
the savings of a lifetime of honest toil and watching the pennies. That's
all I got."

"Serves you right, then," I says, "for not having got married years ago
and having little ones of your own about your knee!"

Homer shuddered painfully when I said this. He started to answer
something back, but just choked up and couldn't.

The adventuress had, of course, sent letters and messages to Homer. The
early ones had been pleading, but the last one wasn't. It was more in the
nature of a base threat if closely analyzed. Then she finished up her
sewing at the Mortimers' and departed for Red Gap, leaving a final
announcement to anybody it concerned that she would now find out if there
was any law in the land to protect a defenseless woman in her sacred
right to motherhood.

Homer shivered when he heard it and begun to think of making another
get-away, like he had done from Idaho. He thought more about it when
someone come back from town and said she was really consulting a
lawyer.

He'd of gone, I guess, if Minna hadn't kept cheering him up with sympathy
and hating children with him. Homer was one desperate man, but still he
couldn't tear himself away from Minna.

Then one morning he gets a letter from the Red Gap lawyer. It says his
client, Mrs. Judson Tolliver, has directed him to bring suit against
Homer for five thousand dollars; and would Homer mebbe like to save the
additional cost--which would be heavy, of course--by settling the matter
out of court and avoiding pain for all?

Homer was in a state where he almost fell for this offer. It was that or
facing a jury that would have it in for him, anyway, or disappearing like
he had done in Idaho; only this lady was highly determined, and reports
had already come to him that he would be watched and nailed if he tried
to leave. It would mean being hounded from pillar to post, even if he did
get away. He went down and put it up to Minna, as I heard later.

"I'm a desperate man," he says, "being hounded by this here catamount;
and mebbe it's best to give in."

"It's outrageous!" says Minna. "Of course you don't care about the money;
but it's the principle of the thing."

"Well, yes and no," says Homer. "You might say I care some about the
money. That's plain nature, and I never denied I was human."

So they went on to discuss it back and forth warmly, when a
misunderstanding arose that I was very careful to get the rights
of a couple of week