son turned. The irrepressible look of humorous tolerance of all
human frailty had suffused Poindexter's black eyes with mischievous
moisture. "If you think it quite safe to confide to your wife this
prospect of her improvement by widowhood, you may!"

CHAPTER III

Mr. Patterson did not inform his wife of the lawyer's personal threat
to himself. But he managed, after Poindexter had left, to make her
conscious that Mrs. Tucker might be a power to be placated and feared.
"You've shot off your mouth at her," he said argumentatively, "and
whether you've hit the mark or not you've had your say. Ef you think
it's worth a possible five thousand dollars and interest to keep on,
heave ahead. Ef you rather have the chance of getting the rest in cash,
you'll let up on her." "You don't suppose," returned Mrs. Patterson
contemptuously, "that she's got anything but what that man of
hers--Poindexter--lets her have?" "The sheriff says," retorted Patterson
surlily, "that she's notified him that she claims the rancho as a gift
from her husband three years ago, and she's in POSSESSION now, and was
so when the execution was out. It don't make no matter," he added, with
gloomy philosophy, "who's got a full hand as long as WE ain't got the
cards to chip in. I wouldn't 'a' minded it," he continued meditatively,
"ef Spence Tucker had dropped a hint to me afore he put out." "And I
suppose," said Mrs. Patterson angrily, "you'd have put out too?" "I
reckon," said Patterson simply.

Twice or thrice during the evening he referred, more or less directly,
to this lack of confidence shown by his late debtor and employer, and
seemed to feel it more keenly than the loss of property. He confided his
sentiments quite openly to the sheriff in possession, over the whiskey
and euchre with which these gentlemen avoided the difficulties of their
delicate relations. He brooded over it as he handed the keys of the shop
to the sheriff when they parted for the night, and was still thinking of
it when the house was closed, everybody gone to bed, and he was fetching
a fresh jug of water from the well. The moon was at times obscured by
flying clouds, the avant-couriers of the regular evening shower. He
was stooping over the well, when he sprang suddenly to his feet again.
"Who's there?" he demanded sharply.

"Hush!" said a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper of
the wind in the palisades of the corral. But, indistinct as it was, it
was the v