ow did you know?"

Ed smiled to himself.

"She's no good!" went on Sam bitterly. "That's what hurts. She's just
a scheming, lying savage! She's only working to get me in her power. I
can't trust her. I've got good reason to know that, and yet--oh God!
she's right in my blood! I can't stop thinking about her a minute.

"Sometimes I think she's a good woman, you know, the real thing,
gentle and true! It's my imagination makes me think that. I _know_
she's no good--but it's driving me crazy. I want her so bad, it seems
as if I'd die if I didn't go back to her. That's what she wants, to
get me under her thumb. I'm a fool! I've got no strength to resist
her!"

"Well, now," said Ed comfortably, "you're all excited. Maybe she ain't
as bad as all that."

"She is! She is!" cried Sam. "I've got good reason to know it."

"'Tain't the thing itself that drives you crazy," Ed went on
philosophically. "It's thinking about it too much. Your brain goes
round like a squirrel in his little cage, and you don't know where you
are. Now, if you could put the whole business out of your mind a
little while, shut a door on it, so to speak, by and by, when you open
it again, there's the right answer standing there plain as a
pike-staff!"

"Forget it!" cried Sam. "It's with me night and day! If I let go, I'll
cave in. I'll go running back! God help me, if she ever gets hold of
me. I'd be the laughing-stock of the whole country! I couldn't look a
child in the face! No! No! If you're my friend, keep me from going
back! Have you got a Bible?"

"Sure," said Ed. "There in the top of that dunnage bag at your hand.
What do you want it for?"

"I'll settle it," Sam muttered, searching for the book. He found it.

"I'll take an oath on it," he said to Ed. "I want you to hear it.
Because a man can find a way to get out of an oath he swears to
himself. Listen!"

A faint effulgence filtering through the canvas revealed him kneeling
on his blankets, with the book in his hands.

He said solemnly: "I swear on this holy book and on my honour that I
will never go back to this woman. And if I break this oath may all men
despise me! So help me God. Amen!"

"That's a good strong one," remarked Ed cheerfully.

"Yes, a man could hardly break that," murmured Sam, oddly calmed.

"Light up," said Ed.

"No, I think I can sleep now."

* * * * *

Sam did sleep until morning. He arose, not exactly in a jovial mood,
neverth