blood off you."

Without a word he followed me and I washed his face as gently as I could
and did my best to clean his shirt and waistcoat with my handkerchief.
His nose was badly swollen.

"Latour, women have been good to me," I said. "I've been taught to think
that a man who treats them badly is the basest of all men. I can't help
it. The feeling has gone into my bones. I'll fight you as often as I
hear you talk as you did."

He reeled with weakness as he started toward his horse. I helped him
into the saddle.

"I guess I'm not as bad as I talk," he remarked.

If it were so he must have revised his view of that distinction which he
had been lying to achieve. It was a curious type of vanity quite new to
me then.

Young Mr. Latour fell behind me as we rode on. The silence was broken
presently by "Mr. Purvis," who said:

"You can hit like the hind leg of a horse. I never sees more speed an'
gristle in a feller o' your age."

"Nobody could swing the scythe and the ax as much as I have without
getting some gristle, and the schoolmaster taught me how to use it," I
answered. "But there's one thing that no man ought to be conceited
about."

"What's that?"

"His own gristle. I remember Mr. Hacket told me once that the worst kind
of a fool was the man who was conceited over his fighting power and
liked to talk about it. If I ever get that way I hope that I shall have
it licked out of me."

"I never git conceited--not that I ain't some reason to be," said Mr.
Purvis with a highly serious countenance. He seemed to have been blind
to that disparity between his acts and sayings which had distinguished
him in Lickitysplit.

I turned my head away to hide my smiles and we rode on in silence.

"I guess I've got somethin' here that is cocollated to please ye," he
said.

He took a letter from his pocket and gave it to me. My heart beat faster
when I observed that the superscription on the envelope was in Sally's
handwriting. The letter, which bore neither signature nor date line,
contained these words:

"Will you please show this to Mr. Barton Baynes? I hope it will
convince him that there is one who still thinks of the days of the
past and of the days that are coming--especially one day."

Tears dimmed my eyes as I read and re-read the message. More than two of
those four years had passed and, as the weeks had dragged along I had
thought more and more of Sally and the day that was coming. I had bough